14 Soils: Processes at the Bio-Geo Interface

Sunday, 17 March 2019
1:30 PM - 5:30 PM
Connecticut Room

METABOLIC POTENTIALS IN SOILS DERIVED FROM ULTRAMAFIC BEDROCK

Paper number: 14-3
Program: Theme Sessions
Time: 2:10 PM – 2:30 PM

Authors

  • Dawn Cardace Presenting Author
    University of Rhode Island, Kingston, RI

Abstract

Ultramafic rocks, rich in Fe and Mg and other metals, alter to serpentine mineral-rich assemblages in the presence of water. The rocks so produced weather further to diverse clay minerals, Fe oxyhydroxides, carbonate group minerals, and relict spinel and crystalline Fe-oxide phases. Through these transformations, soil microbial communities gain access to a changing mineral backdrop offering diverse redox gradients. Metabolic potential, considered as the collection of thermodynamically feasible metabolic strategies at a given reaction step, shifts in concert. Here, I consider the weathering serpentine-rich soil unit as a habitat, and describe the changes in energy yielding reactions over the course of the environmental reaction. The implications for environments in continent-hosted ophiolites, in subseafloor settings, and planetary sites in which serpentine has been detected, are discussed.

Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. Vol. 51, No. 1

doi: 10.1130/abs/2019NE-328217

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