Collaborative Research: Development of Numerical Models Linking Fluid Geochemistry and Biological Communities in Mid-Ocean Ridge Hydrothermal Environments

这项研究的新颖之处在于它创建了一个首个模型，该模型解释了海底热液喷口系统流体混合环境中流体运输和微生物代谢过程的影响。 热液喷口是地球上最有趣和最重要的极端环境之一，栖息在其中的微生物是天然产物研究新化合物的潜在目标，从中可以衍生出新的重要药物。 该项目首次将化学合成热液喷口生物群落和地下发生的地质/地球化学过程联系在一起。 由此产生的数学和计算模型描绘了化学环境，解释了海水和热液混合过程中微生物代谢对不断变化的流体化学的影响，可用于指导生物勘探。 模型将受到 RIDGE 2000 计划期间收集的高温、聚焦和低温扩散喷发流体的成分以及海底热液环境中微生物分布的限制。 这项工作更广泛的影响包括创建反应运输模型的模型代码，其中明确包括微生物减轻的反应、学生培训以及生物能反应建模研讨会的开展。

This research is novel in that its creates a first-of-a-kind model that accounts for the effects of fluid transport and microbial metabolic processes in fluid mixing environments at seafloor hydrothermal vent systems. Hydrothermal vents are some of the most interesting and important extreme environments on the planet and the microbes that inhabit them are potential targets for new compounds for natural products studies from which new and important pharmaceuticals might be derived. This project links together for the first time, the chemosynthetic hydrothermal vent biological communities and the geologic/geochemical processes taking place in the subsurface. The resulting mathematical and computational models portray chemical environments that account for the impact of microbial metabolism on evolving fluid chemistry during the mixing of seawater and hydrothermal fluid and could be used to direct bioprospecting. Models will be constrained by reported compositions of high-temperature, focused and low-temperature diffusively venting fluids as well as microbial distribution in seafloor hydrothermal environments collected during the RIDGE 2000 program. The broader impacts of the work include creating modeling codes for reactive transport modeling which explicitly include reactions mitigated by microbes, student training, and the development of a workshop on modeling bioenergetic reactions.