Microbial community in the potential gas hydrate area Kaoping Canyon bearing sediment at offshore SW Taiwan

Abstract:

The deep sub-seafloor biosphere is among the least-understood habitats on Earth, even though the huge microbial biomass plays a potentially important role in long-term controls of global biogeochemical cycles. The research team from Taiwan, supported by the Central Geological Survey (CGS), has been demonstrated at SW offshore Taiwan that indicated this area is potential gas hydrate region. Therefore, the Gas Hydrate Master Program (GHMP) was brought in the National Energy Program-Phase II (NEP-II) to continue research and development. In this study, the microbial community structure of potential gas hydrate bearing sediments of giant piston core MD-178-10-3291 (KP12N) from the Kaoping Canyon offshore SW of Taiwan were investigated. This core was found many empty spaces and filling huge methane gas (>99.9 %) that might dissociate from solid gas hydrate. 16S rRNA gene clone libraries and phylogenetic analysis showed that the dominant members of Archaea were ANME (13 %), SAGMEG (31 %) and DSAG (20 %), and those of Bacteria were Chloroflexi (13 %), Candidate division JS1 (40 %) and Planctomycetes (15 %). Among them, ANME-3 is only distributed at the sulfate-methane interface (SMI) of 750 cmbsf, and sharing similarity with the Hydrate Ridge clone HydBeg92. ANME-1 and SAGMEG distributed below 750 cmbsf. In addition, DSAG and Candidate division JS1 are most dominant and distributed vertically at all tested depths from 150-3600 cmbsf. Combine the geochemical data and microbial phylotype distribution suggests the potential of gas hydrate bearing sediments at core MD-178-10-3291 (KP12N) from the Kaoping Canyon offshore SW of Taiwan.