Subglacial erosion has the potential to sustain microbial processes in Subglacial Lake Whillans, Antarctica

Beatriz Gill-Olivas, Jon Telling, Martyn Tranter, Mark Skidmore, Brent Christner, Simon O'Doherty, John Priscu

Research output: Contribution to journalArticle (Academic Journal)peer-review

12 Citations (Scopus)
73 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Subglacial Lake Whillans lies below around 800 m of Antarctic ice and is isolated from fresh sources of photosynthetic organic matter to sustain life. The diverse microbial ecosystems within the lake and underlying sediments are therefore dependent on a combination of relict, overridden, marine-derived organic matter and mineral-derived energy. Here, we conduct experiments to replicate subglacial erosion involving both gentle and high-energy crushing of Subglacial Lake Whillans sediments and the subsequent addition of anoxic water. We find that substantial quantities of reduced species, including hydrogen, methane, acetate and ammonium and oxidised species such as hydrogen peroxide, sulfate and carbon dioxide are released. We propose that the concomitant presence of both hydrogen and hydrogen peroxide, alongside high concentrations of mineral surface radicals, suggests that the splitting of water on freshly abraded mineral surfaces increases the concentrations of redox pairs from rock-water reactions and could provide a mechanism to augment the energy available to microbial ecosystems.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)134
Number of pages1
JournalCommunications Earth & Environment
Volume2
Issue number1
Early online date29 Jun 2021
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Dec 2021

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Subglacial erosion has the potential to sustain microbial processes in Subglacial Lake Whillans, Antarctica'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this