Georgieva, MN, Little, CTS, Glover, AG et al. (1 more author) (2015) Mineralization of Alvinella polychaete tubes at hydrothermal vents. Geobiology, 13 (2). 152 - 169. ISSN 1472-4677
Abstract
Alvinellid polychaete worms form multilayered organic tubes in the hottest and most rapidly growing areas of deep-sea hydrothermal vent chimneys. Over short periods of time, these tubes can become entirely mineralized within this environment. Documenting the nature of this process in terms of the stages of mineralization, as well as the mineral textures and end products that result, is essential for our understanding of the fossilization of polychaetes at hydrothermal vents. Here, we report in detail the full mineralization of Alvinella spp. tubes collected from the East Pacific Rise, determined through the use of a wide range of imaging and analytical techniques. We propose a new model for tube mineralization, whereby mineralization begins as templating of tube layer and sublayer surfaces and results in fully mineralized tubes comprised of multiple concentric, colloform, pyrite bands. Silica appeared to preserve organic tube layers in some samples. Fine-scale features such as protein fibres, extracellular polymeric substances and two types of filamentous microbial colonies were also found to be well preserved within a subset of the tubes. The fully mineralized Alvinella spp. tubes do not closely resemble known ancient hydrothermal vent tube fossils, corroborating molecular evidence suggesting that the alvinellids are a relatively recent polychaete lineage. We also compare pyrite and silica preservation of organic tissues within hydrothermal vents to soft tissue preservation in sediments and hot springs.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2014 The Authors. Geobiology Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > School of Earth and Environment (Leeds) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number NERC NE/C000714/1 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 18 Mar 2015 11:29 |
Last Modified: | 15 Jan 2018 22:43 |
Published Version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/gbi.12123 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Wiley |
Identification Number: | 10.1111/gbi.12123 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:83486 |