Microbes capable of making methane discovered more than 300m deep in wells near Ibra

Date

9/29/2016 1:06:14 AM

(MENAFN- Muscat Daily) Muscat-

The mystery around the possibility of life on Mars due to the discovery of methane gas by NASA's Curiosity rover team in 2013 could be solved by studying methane-producing organisms living within remote wells in the peridotite rocks of Oman.

The Omani wells go down hundreds of metres to reach rock layers that store water. Such environments, where rocks from our planet's mantle are in contact with water, could provide clues about the possible past or present habitability of planets such as Mars, said Alexis Templeton, a geologist and microbiologist at the University of Colorado.

She and her colleagues discovered the existence of tiny microbes capable of making methane in water samples taken from the wells. Their finding marks a first step towards better understanding how methane is produced in such underground environments. 'We were excited to know that we definitely can detect methanogens - organisms that can make methane - and we can detect methane,' Alexis was quoted by NASA's Astrobiology Magazine . 'But we can't make that causal link yet.'

In the winter of 2014, Alexis and her colleagues got the permission to collect water samples and drill cuttings from peridotite well sites near Ibra.

They detailed their research results in the February 2016 issue of the journal Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta .

Peridotite is a dense, coarse-grained igneous rock consisting mostly of the minerals olivine and pyroxene. Such minerals are commonly found in both rocky planets and moons throughout the solar system. The interaction between water and such minerals can also lead to the formation of minerals such as serpentinite rock. But on Earth, researchers rarely get easy access to these underground rock layers.

But in Oman, due to geological activity from the shifting of the Earth's tectonic plates, large swathes of such rocks have been exposed to the surface. Sometimes water that has been trapped underground in such rocks can be observed in surface springs. However, the Omani wells provide a rare opportunity to access trapped rock and water and gas samples that have not been exposed to the Earth's atmosphere.

Several surprises have already come from the initial study of the well samples' rock chemistry and water mineralogy. Researchers found methane dissolved in the underground water that had an unusual chemistry never seen elsewhere. 'The subsurface methane doesn't match with the isotope chemistry of any other methanes measured before, and it doesn't fit the model of how other methanes are made,' Alexis said.

Many open questions remain on the underground well environments. Firstly, researchers remain unsure about how much carbon and chemical energy exists to sustain large communities of underground organisms. Another question is how the flow of water affects the rock chemistry and the habitability of the underground environment.

'We got excited to find methane, but it's still very challenging to figure out how it formed,' Alexis said. 'We'll be doing future work to see if we can prove how and when methane formed and what that represents for biology and chemistry.'

Legal Disclaimer:
MENAFN provides the information “as is” without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the provider above.