Bacterial and abiogenic carbonates formed in caves-no vital effect on clumped isotope compositions

PLoS One. 2021 Jan 25;16(1):e0245621. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0245621. eCollection 2021.

Abstract

Speleothems (dominated by cave-hosted carbonate deposits) are valuable archives of paleoclimate conditions. As such, they are potential targets of clumped isotope analyses that may yield quantified data about past temperature variations. Clumped isotope analyses of stalagmites, however, seldom provide useful temperature values due to various isotope fractionation processes. This study focuses on the determination of the microbially induced vital effect, i.e., the isotope fractionation processes related to bacterial carbonate production. A cave site with biologically mediated amorphous calcium carbonate precitation was selected as a natural laboratory. Calcite deposits were farmed under a UV lamp to prevent bacterial activity, as well as under control conditions. Microbiological analyses and morphological investigations using scanning electron microscopy showed that the UV lamp treatment effectively reduced the number of bacterial cells, and that bacterial carbonate production strongly influenced the carbonate's morphology. Stable oxygen isotope analyses of calcite and drip waters, as well as clumped isotope measurements revealed that, although most of the studied carbonates formed close to oxygen isotope equilibrium, clumped isotope Δ47 values varied widely from equilibrium to strongly fractionated data. Site-specific kinetic fractionations played a dominant role in the distribution of Δ47 values, whereas bacterial carbonate production did not result in a detectable clumped isotope effect.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Bacteria / growth & development*
  • Carbon Isotopes / chemistry
  • Carbonates / chemistry*
  • Carbonates / metabolism
  • Caves
  • Geologic Sediments / chemistry*
  • Geologic Sediments / microbiology

Substances

  • Carbon Isotopes
  • Carbonates

Grants and funding

The study was financially supported by the National Research, Development and Innovation Office, Hungary (FK123871 and PD 121387), the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (KEP-8/2018 to AD, and the János Bolyai Research Scholarship to PN), and the Eötvös Loránd Research Network (KEP-1/2020 to AD). The work of Nóra Enyedi was supported by the ÚNKP-20-3-II-ELTE-260 New National Excellence Program of the Ministry for Innovation and Technology from the source of the National Research, Development and Innovation Fund. The clumped isotope facility of the Institute for Nuclear Research was funded by the European Union and the State of Hungary, as well as co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund in the project of GINOP-2.3.2-15-2016-00009 ‘ICER’. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.