Oceanic methane biogeochemistry.

By W. Reeburgh. Chemical Reviews, 2007

1,545 citations recorded by the source corpus.

This review shows that thermodynamic and kinetic constraints largely prevent large-scale methanogenesis in the open ocean water column. One example of open-ocean methanogenesis involves anoxic digestive tracts and fecal pellet microenvironments; methane released during fecal pellet disaggregation results in the mixed-layer methane maximum. However, the bulk of the methane in the ocean is added by coastal runoff, seeps, hydrothermal vents, decomposing hydrates, and mud volcanoes. Since methane is present in the open ocean at nanomolar concentrations, and since the flux to the atmosphere is small, the ultimate fate of ocean methane additions must be oxidation within the ocean. As indicated in the Introduction and highlighted in Table 3, sources of methane to the ocean water column are poorly quantified. There are only a small number of direct water column methane oxidation rates, so sinks are also poorly quantified. We know that methane oxidation rates are sensitive to ambient methane concentrations, but we have no information on reaction kinetics and only one report of the effect of pressure on methane oxidation. Our perspective on methane sources and the extent of methane oxidation has been changed dramatically by new techniques involving gene probes, determination of isotopically depleted biomarkers, and recent 14C-CH4 measurements showing that methane geochemistry in anoxic basins is dominated by seeps providing fossil methane. The role of anaerobic oxidation of methane has changed from a controversial curiosity to a major sink in anoxic basins and sediments. © 2007 American Chemical Society.

Subfields: Environmental Chemistry, Global and Planetary Change, Mechanics of Materials

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/23f153c495aa13119e27821e4c61b99cc939bb38

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In Environmental Chemistry

1. Stefan Schouten
2. J. Damsté
3. R. Glud
4. M. Elvert
5. B. Jørgensen
6. Soren Rysgaard
7. J. Stolz
8. R. Thauer

In Global and Planetary Change

1. H. Niemann
2. Tingting Zhu
3. Maria Dittrich
4. Soren Rysgaard
5. T. Nielsen
6. B. Jørgensen
7. M. Elvert
8. R. Glud

In Mechanics of Materials

1. J. Damsté
2. Stefan Schouten
3. H. Niemann
4. Tingting Zhu
5. Maria Dittrich
6. B. Jørgensen
7. M. Elvert

Citations in the corpus

• Copepod guts as biogeochemical hotspots in the sea: Evidence from microelectrode profiling of Calanus spp (2011, background): “A well-known paradoxical phenomenon is methane oversaturation in a well-oxygenated mid-water column (Reeburgh 2007).”
• Seabed methane emissions and the habitat of frenulate tubeworms on the Captain Arutyunov mud volcano (Gulf of Cadiz) (2009, background): “Microbial methanotrophy was early recognized as an important control mechanism for methane flux in sedimentary environments dominated by slow pore water fluid flow and diffusion as well as in freshwater systems and soils (cf. Reeburgh 2007, and references therein).”
• Diagnostic lipid biomarker and stable carbon isotope signatures of microbial communities mediating the anaerobic oxidation of methane with sulphate (2008, background): “However, the contribution of the oceans to atmospheric methane sources is globally estimated to be below 3% (Judd et al., 2002; Reeburgh, 2007).”
• Evidence for methane production by the marine algae Emiliania huxleyi (2016, background): “Concentrations of CH4 in near-surface waters are often 5–75 % supersaturated with respect to the atmosphere, implying a net flux from the ocean to the atmosphere (Conrad, 2009; Reeburgh, 2007; Scranton and Brewer, 1977).”
• Arsenic in the Evolution of Earth and Extraterrestrial Ecosystems (2009, background): “While the best studied oxidant for anaerobic methane oxidation has been sulfate in marine systems ( Reeburgh 2007 ), this general phenomenon also couples with nitrate ( Raghoebarsing et al.”
• The Biogeochemical Sulfur Cycle of Marine Sediments (2019, background): “Sulfate serves as the electron acceptor according to the following net equation of chemical species dissolved in the aqueous phase (e.g., Reeburgh, 2007): SO2−4 + CH4→HCO − 3 + HS − + H2O (1) The flux ratio of sulfate and methane diffusing into the SMT is often not 1:1, as predicted by the…”
• Methanogenic archaea: ecologically relevant differences in energy conservation (2008, background): “Figure 1 shows that methane can be oxidized to CO 2 by microorganisms not only aerobically but also anaerobically; the most dominant anaerobic process is the anaerobic oxidation of methane (AOM) with sulphat”
• Microbial ecology of the stratified water column of the Black Sea as revealed by a comprehensive biomarker study (2007, background): “Methane reaches 12 lM near the bottom, but most is oxidized anaerobically in the anoxic water column, and to a lesser extent, aerobically in the suboxic zone (Reeburgh et al., 1991; Kessler et al., 2006a,b; Reeburgh, 2007).”
• Feast and famine — microbial life in the deep-sea bed (2007, neutral): “The microorganism-mediated anaerobic oxidation of methane (AOM) with sulphate, according to the equation CH 4 + SO 4 2− → HCO 3 − + HS − + H 2 O, is the dominant process at cold-seep ecosystems and one of the major global sinks of methan”
• Carbonate Precipitation through Microbial Activities in Natural Environment, and Their Potential in Biotechnology: A Review (2016, background): “…of common microbial metabolic activities, including photosynthesis (Dupraz et al., 2004), ureolysis (Fujita et al., 2000), denitrification (Van Paassen et al., 2010), ammonification (Rodriguez-Navarro et al., 2003), sulfate reduction (Braissant et al., 2007), and methane oxidation (Reeburgh, 2007).”