Geomicrobiology

Information about Geomicrobiology

Geomicrobiology is a subset of the scientific discipline microbiology. The field of geomicrobiology concerns the role of microbe and microbial processes in geological and geochemical processes. The field is especially important when dealing with microorganisms in aquifers and public drinking water supplies.

Another area of investigation in geomicrobiology is the study of extremophile organisms, the microorganisms that thrive in environments normally considered hostile. Such environments may include extremely hot (hot springs or mid-ocean ridge black smoker) environments, extremely saline environments, or even space environments such as Martian soil or comets.

Recent observations and research in hyper-saline lagoon environments in Brazil and Australia have shown that anaerobic sulfate-reducing bacteria may be directly involved in the formation of dolomite. This suggests the alteration and replacement of limestone sediments by dolomitization in ancient rocks was possibly aided by ancestors to these anaerobic bacteria.

Some bacteria use metal ions as their energy source. They convert (or chemically reduce) the dissolved metal ions from one electrical state to another. This reduction releases energy for the bacteria's use, and, as a side product, serves to concentrate the metals into what ultimately become ore deposits. Certain iron, uranium and even gold ores are thought to have formed as the result of microbe action.

Microbes are being studied and used to degrade organic and even nuclear waste pollution (see Deinococcus radiodurans) and assist in environmental cleanup. (It should be stressed however that microorganisms can not decrease the total radioactivity of nuclear waste.)

An application of geomicrobiology is bioleaching, the use of microbes to extract metals from mine waste.

See also

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Microbiology is the study of microorganisms, which are unicellular or cell-cluster microscopic organisms.[1] This includes eukaryotes such as fungi and protists, and prokaryotes such as bacteria and certain algae.
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An aquifer is an underground layer of water-bearing permeable rock or unconsolidated materials (gravel, sand, silt, or clay) from which groundwater can be usefully extracted using a water well.
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An extremophile is an organism that thrives in and may even require physically or geochemically extreme conditions that are detrimental to the majority of life on Earth.

Most extremophiles are microbes.
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hot spring is a spring that is produced by the emergence of geothermally-heated groundwater from the earth's crust. There are hot springs all over the earth, on every continent and even under the oceans and seas.
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mid-ocean ridge or mid-oceanic ridge is an underwater mountain range, formed by plate tectonics. This uplifting of the ocean floor occurs when convection currents rise in the mantle beneath the oceanic crust and create magma where two tectonic plates meet at a divergent
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Black smokers are a type of hydrothermal vent found on the ocean floor. The vents are formed in fields hundreds of meters wide when superheated water from below the Earth's crust comes through the ocean floor. It can also be known as a Sea Vent.
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Salinity is the saltiness or dissolved salt content of a body of water. Salinity in Australian English and North American English may refer to salt in soil (see soil salination).

Definition


Water salinity
Fresh water Brackish water Saline water Brine
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Mars  

Mars as seen by the Hubble Space Telescope
Orbital characteristics
Epoch J2000<ref name="nssdc" />
Aphelion distance: 249,228,730 km
1.66599116 AU
Perihelion distance: 206,644,545 km
1.
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comet is a small body in the solar system that orbits the Sun and (at least occasionally) exhibits a coma (or atmosphere) and/or a tail — both primarily from the effects of solar radiation upon the comet's nucleus, which itself is a minor body composed of rock, dust, and
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lagoon is a body of comparatively shallow salt or brackish water separated from the deeper sea by a shallow or exposed sandbank, coral reef, or similar feature. Thus, the enclosed body of water behind a barrier reef or barrier islands or enclosed by an atoll reef is called a
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Motto
Ordem e Progresso   (Portuguese)
"Order and Progress"
Anthem
Hino Nacional Brasileiro
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Anthem
Advance Australia Fair [1]


Capital Canberra

Largest city Sydney
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anaerobic organism is any organism that does not require oxygen for growth.
  • Obligate anaerobes will die when exposed to atmospheric levels of oxygen.
  • Facultative anaerobes can use oxygen when it is present.

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Sulfate-reducing bacteria comprise several groups of bacteria that use sulfate as an oxidizing agent, reducing it to sulfide. Most sulfate-reducing bacteriacan also use other oxidized sulfur compounds such as sulfite and thiosulfate, or elemental sulfur.
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Dolomite (IPA: /ˈdɒləmʌɪt/) is the name of a sedimentary carbonate rock and a mineral, both composed of calcium magnesium carbonate CaMg(CO3)2 found in crystals.
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Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the mineral calcite (calcium carbonate: CaCO3). Limestone often contains variable amounts of silica in the form of chert or flint, as well as varying amounts of clay, silt and sand as disseminations, nodules, or layers
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The Macro Expansion Template Attribute Language complements TAL, providing macros which allow the reuse of code across template files. Both were created for Zope but are used in other Python projects as well.
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ion is an atom or molecule which has lost or gained one or more electrons, making it positively or negatively charged. A negatively charged ion, which has more electrons in its electron shells than it has protons in its nuclei, is known as an anion
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3, 4, 6
(amphoteric oxide)
Electronegativity 1.83 (Pauling scale)
Ionization energies
(more) 1st: 762.5 kJmol−1
2nd: 1561.9 kJmol−1
3rd: 2957 kJmol−1

Atomic radius 140 pm
Atomic radius (calc.
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Uranium (IPA: /jʊˈreɪniəm/)is a white/black metallic chemical element in the actinide series of the periodic table that has the symbol U and atomic number 92.
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GOLD refers to one of the following:
  • GOLD (IEEE) is an IEEE program designed to garner more student members at the university level (Graduates of the Last Decade).
  • GOLD (parser) is an open source BNF parser.

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ore is a volume of rock containing components or minerals in a mode of occurrence that renders it valuable for mining. An ore must contain materials that are
  • valuable
  • in concentrations that can be profitably mined, transported, milled, and processed.

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Radioactive wastes are waste types containing radioactive chemical elements that do not have a practical purpose. They are sometimes the products of a nuclear processes, such as nuclear fission.
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D. radiodurans

Binomial name
Deinococcus radiodurans
Brooks & Murray, 1981

Deinococcus radiodurans ("strange berry that withstands radiation", formerly called
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Bioleaching is the extraction of specific metals from their ores through the use of bacteria. Bioleaching is one of several applications within biohydrometallurgy.

Bioleaching is a technique used by the mining industry to extract minerals such as gold and copper from their
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worldwide view of the subject.
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Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, usually (but not always) from an ore body, vein, or (coal) seam.
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Acid mine drainage (AMD), or acid rock drainage (ARD), refers to the outflow of acidic water from (usually) abandoned metal mines or coal mines. However, other areas where the earth has been disturbed (e.g.
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Bacterial oxidation is a bio-hydrometallurgical process developed for pre-cyanidation treatment of refractory gold ores or concentrates. The bacterial culture is a mixed culture of Thiobacillus ferrooxidans, Thiobacillus thiooxidans and
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Desulforudis audaxviator is a bacterium, which lives in depths from 1,5 km to 3 km below the Earth's surface in the groundwater.

It is a bacterium found in water samples obtained nearly two miles underground in a South African gold mine.
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