Development of the Capability to Measure Proxies of Microbial Activity Within Oceanic Crust

该技术开发项目将在 由夏威夷大学的调查人员进行， 华盛顿和伊利诺伊-芝加哥。 特种海底 将开发仪器来测试是否存在 数百米以下的海底生物圈 水-岩界面，通过检测特定的代谢 伴随着热液流体的产物， 从地壳排放到上层海水中。测试 根据地下生物圈假设，将建造并部署一个装有仪器的“生物毯”， 表层岩石区海水，并集中上升流 流体通过净化柱， 代谢（有机碳）产物， 与这些地下微生物群落的关系。这些 诊断性有机化合物应伴随 已知热液流体在 上地壳岩石，并最终排放到 暴露岩石中扩散喷口处的上覆海水 露头拟议的仪表化包层还将 测量上升流的温度和速度 排放到海水中生物毯的开发将 在最初的部署中， 在脊轴处进行，其中流体通量 水平很高，溶解的碳代谢 浓度相对较高。直接检测 一个广泛分布的生物群落，生活在 海底下的情况将大大改变 生物生产力和全球碳预算， 并对我们的哲学观点产生深远的影响 地球

This collaborative technology development project will be undertaken by investigators at the Universities of Hawaii, Washington, and Illinois-Chicago. Specialized seafloor instrumentation will be developed to test for the presence of a sub-seafloor biosphere hundreds of meters below the water-rock interface, by detecting specific metabolic products which accompany the hydrothermal fluids as they vent from the crust into the overlying seawater. To test the sub-surface biosphere hypothesis, an instrumented "bio- blanket" will be built and deployed that isolates a small area of surface rock from seawater, and focuses up-welling fluid through scavenging columns that serve as traps for metabolic (organic carbon) products which are associated with these sub-surface microbial communities. These diagnostic organic compounds should accompany the hydrothermal fluid that is known to circulate within the upper crustal rocks and eventually discharges into the overlying seawater at diffuse vent sites in exposed rock outcrops. The proposed instrumented blanket would also measure up-welling temperatures and velocities as the fluid vents into seawater. The development of the bio-blanket will be in several graduated stages, with the initial deployments being carried out at a ridge axis, where the fluid flux levels are substantial, and the dissolved carbon metabolic concentrations are relatively high. The direct detection of a wide-spread biological community, living within the sub-surface ocean floor would dramatically alter estimates of biological productivity and the global carbon budgets, and have a profound impact on our philosophical view of the earth.