Shaping of the Present-Day Deep Biosphere at Chicxulub by the Impact Catastrophe That Ended the Cretaceous

Shaping of the Present-Day Deep Biosphere at Chicxulub by the Impact Catastrophe That Ended the Cretaceous

We report on the effect of the end-Cretaceous impact event on the present-day deep microbial biosphere at the impact site. IODP-ICDP Expedition 364 drilled into the peak ring of the Chicxulub crater, México, allowing us to investigate the microbial communities within this structure. Increased cell b...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Cockell, C.S., Schaefer, Bettina, Wuchter, Cornelia, Coolen, Marco, Grice, Kliti, Schnieders, L., Morgan, J.V., Gulick, S.P.S., Wittmann, A., Lofi, J., Christeson, G.L., Kring, D.A., Whalen, M.T., Bralower, T.J., Osinski, G.R., Claeys, P., Kaskes, P., de Graaff, S.J., Déhais, T., Goderis, S., Hernandez Becerra, N., Nixon, S.
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: FRONTIERS MEDIA SA 2021
Subjects:
Science & Technology
Life Sciences & Biomedicine
Microbiology
chicxulub
impact crater
deep biosphere
drilling
craters
MICROBIAL COMMUNITIES
CRYSTALLINE ROCKS
GEN-NOV
LIFE
TERRESTRIAL
GROUNDWATER
EXTINCTION
EXTRACTION
DIVERSITY
HABITAT
Online Access:http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/DP180100982
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/90123
Description
Summary:We report on the effect of the end-Cretaceous impact event on the present-day deep microbial biosphere at the impact site. IODP-ICDP Expedition 364 drilled into the peak ring of the Chicxulub crater, México, allowing us to investigate the microbial communities within this structure. Increased cell biomass was found in the impact suevite, which was deposited within the first few hours of the Cenozoic, demonstrating that the impact produced a new lithological horizon that caused a long-term improvement in deep subsurface colonization potential. In the biologically impoverished granitic rocks, we observed increased cell abundances at impact-induced geological interfaces, that can be attributed to the nutritionally diverse substrates and/or elevated fluid flow. 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing revealed taxonomically distinct microbial communities in each crater lithology. These observations show that the impact caused geological deformation that continues to shape the deep subsurface biosphere at Chicxulub in the present day.

Similar Items