Abstract
Stromatolites, laminated benthic microbial deposits, and other microbialites have been known for more than three billion years since the very early periods of the history of life on Earth. Most of them are thought to have been formed as a result of photosynthetic processes. In contrast to such microbialites, chemosynthetically produced microbialites, mainly carbonate minerals, have been found in deep sea settings where active hydrocarbon seeps (synonymous with cold seeps and methane seeps) existed. Seep carbonates are formed under the influence of the anaerobic oxidation of methane (AOM) mediated by anaerobic methane-oxidizing archaea and sulfate-reducing bacteria. Some internal textures of these chemosynthetically mediated carbonates are similar to those of photosynthetically mediated microbialites. But the chemical signatures of the two types are different from each other. The most distinguishable signature is that the seep carbonate has 13C-depleted carbonate cements and lipid biomarkers. Here, we show lithological and chemical features of Late Cretaceous hydrocarbon seep carbonates, which were found in fore-arc basin deposits in Hokkaido, Japan, as examples of chemosynthetically mediated microbialites.
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Acknowledgments
We deeply appreciate the suggestion by Professor Vinod C. Tewari that we should be invited to write this chapter. The paper benefited from peer reviews by Professor V.C. Tewari and Atsushi Yamamoto (University of Tsukuba). Heartfelt gratitude is due to Kazushige Tanabe (University of Tokyo) for his support at all stages of this research, and to Andrzej Kaim (Institute of Paleobiology, PAN, Poland) for helpful discussions and information on fossils and their recent counterparts. Thanks are extended to M.E. Jenkins for his linguistic improvements of this article. The research leading by RGJ was financially supported by the Nippon Foundation−Hadal Environmental Science Education Program (HADEEP), the Fukada Geological Institute, scientific research grant support from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS; grant no. 18403013, leader Kazushige Tanabe), and Grant-in-Aid for JSPS Fellows.
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Jenkins, R.G., Hikida, Y. (2011). Carbonate Sediments Microbially Induced by Anaerobic Oxidation of Methane in Hydrocarbon-Seeps. In: Tewari, V., Seckbach, J. (eds) STROMATOLITES: Interaction of Microbes with Sediments. Cellular Origin, Life in Extreme Habitats and Astrobiology, vol 18. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-0397-1_26
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-0397-1_26
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