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Extremophiles for Sustainable Bio-energy Production
Published in Pratibha Dheeran, Sachin Kumar, Extremophiles, 2022
Amit Verma, Tirath Raj, Shulbhi Verma, Varun Kumar, Ruchi Agrawal
Microorganisms able to survive under extreme pressure (upto 120 MPa) are referred to as barophiles or piezophiles (Eisenmenger and Reyes-De-Corcuera 2009). Barophiles have the adaptation for tolerating the high pressure in cold environments, while piezophiles have the adaptation for high pressure and all allowable temperatures. They are usually naturally found in deep sea sediments and submarine hydrothermal vents with variety of microorganisms like archaea, bacteria and fungi. At high pressure, these microorganisms face a great challenge to maintain their membrane fluidity and they manage it by increasing unsaturated fatty acids in membranes (Valentine and Valentine 2004). At high pressure condition, cells often loose transporter activities and these organisms upregulate their transporters to cope with the problem (Abe 2007). Owing to their occurrence in diverse temperature range,these microorganisms have heat and cold-shock proteins to overcome the problem of protein denaturation (Martin et al. 2002).
Adaptation of Life to Extreme Conditions
Published in Michael Hehenberger, Zhi Xia, Huanming Yang, Our Animal Connection, 2020
Michael Hehenberger, Zhi Xia, Huanming Yang
At any given depth, the temperature is practically constant over long periods of time. There are no seasonal temperature changes, nor are there any annual changes. No other habitat on earth has such a constant temperature. Only hydrothermal vents are the exception, there the temperature of the water as it emerges from the “black smoker” chimneys may be as high as 400°C. It is kept from boiling by the high hydrostatic pressure. Within a few meters from the vent it may be back down to 2–4°C. Organisms living close to such vents are also very interesting, they are examples of life on earth not dependent on the sun. They obtain nutrients and energy directly from thermal sources and from chemical reactions associated with mineral deposits. These organisms depend on hydrogen sulfide, a compound that is highly toxic to almost all terrestrial life. The fact that life can exist under these extreme conditions may open up the possibility that there may be life elsewhere in the universe.
Adaptation of Life to Extreme Conditions
Published in Michael Hehenberger, Zhi Xia, Our Animal Connection, 2019
At any given depth, the temperature is practically constant over long periods of time. There are no seasonal temperature changes, nor are there any annual changes. No other habitat on earth has such a constant temperature. Only hydrothermal vents are the exception, there the temperature of the water as it emerges from the “black smoker” chimneys may be as high as 400°C. It is kept from boiling by the high hydrostatic pressure. Within a few meters from the vent it may be back down to 2–4°C. Organisms living close to such vents are also very interesting, they are examples of life on earth not dependent on the sun. They obtain nutrients and energy directly from thermal sources and from chemical reactions associated with mineral deposits. These organisms depend on hydrogen sulfide, a compound that is highly toxic to almost all terrestrial life. The fact that life can exist under these extreme conditions may open up the possibility that there may be life elsewhere in the universe.
Hydrodynamic analysis of a deep-sea pressure equaliser
Published in Journal of Marine Engineering & Technology, 2020
Haocai Huang, Wenke Ge, Canjun Yang, Yan Wei
Except the water samplers discussed above, many novel water samplers have emerged in the twenty-first century. Delaware University developed a small volume water sampler named ‘Sipper’ (Di Meo et al. 1999) which was carried in manned deep-sea vehicle – Alvin. It was syringe type and able to accomplish 12 seawater samplings at once with the capacity from 1 to 10 ml nearby deep-sea hydrothermal vent environment. Moreover, Delaware University also developed a large volume water sampler named ‘LVWS’ (Wommack et al. 2004). It was built upon a standard elevator platform and its capacity has reached to 120 l. A titanium water sampler used to sample carbon dioxide was developed by WHOI (Doherty et al. 2003). Its distinctive feature is the titanium and stainless steel capable of preventing samples from being contaminated. WHOI also developed an autonomous microbial sampler – AMS (Taylor et al. 2006) targeting to sample uncontaminated microorganism in hydrothermal solution. Alfred Wegener, a Germany marine and polar research institute developed a high-resolution water sampler – BoWaSnapper (Sauter et al. 2005) to collect bottom seawater. Its volume is 6 l and maximum work depth is 6000 m.
Cyclic tidalites and seismites at a submarine hydrothermal system for a 2450 Ma banded iron formation, Hamersley Basin, Western Australia
Published in Australian Journal of Earth Sciences, 2023
Present-day deep-sea hydrothermal vent fields are typically tens of metres across and up to 800 m2 in area, with the discharged hydrothermal fluids forming plumes that are rapidly diluted by seawater and spread laterally for tens to thousands of kilometres (Baker et al., 1995; Suárez-Bosche et al., 2005). Monitoring of sea-floor hydrothermal vents on oceanic ridges and seamounts over periods of up to several months has indicated tidal influences on the discharge, temperature and dispersal of deep-sea hydrothermal plumes (Barreyre et al., 2014; Fujioka et al., 1997; Kasahara & Sato, 2001; Kinoshita et al., 1998; Nishizawa et al., 1995; Tivey et al., 2002).
Features of seafloor hydrothermal alteration in metabasalts of mid-ocean ridge origin from the Chrystalls Beach Complex
Published in New Zealand Journal of Geology and Geophysics, 2021
Caroline Hung, Lisa A. Gilbert, Damon A. H. Teagle, Dave Craw, Reinhard A. Wobus
When the δ18O and 87Sr/86Sr data are cross plotted (Figure 7), a fracture flow trajectory is present as modelled by DePaulo (2006). There is a much larger shift in δ18O in comparison to Sr, which suggests that the fluid oxygen is interacting with much more of the rock volume than is the fluid Sr. This fracture flow models the effects of matrix diffusion on isotopic exchange between fluid and rocks typical of mid-ocean ridge hydrothermal vent fluids. In contrast, porous flow in other geo-hydrological systems results in 87Sr/86Sr ratios changing rapidly along the direction of flow with almost no change in δ18O.