We investigate the uppermost 60 cm of sediment in active pockmarks of a deep-water methane seep site from Vestnesa Ridge offshore NW Svalbard. Using video guided core sampling with a remotely operated vehicle we collected push cores directly from bacterial mats within two active pockmarks, Lunde and Lomvi. Pore water analyses show very shallow sulphate methane transition zones and transport-reaction ...

The exceptionally organic-rich rocks of the 1.98 Ga Zaonega Formation deposited in the Onega Basin, NW Russia, have refined our understanding of Earth System evolution during the Paleoproterozoic rise in atmospheric oxygen. These rocks were formed in vent- or seep influenced settings contemporaneous with voluminous mafic volcanism and contain strongly ¹³C-depleted organic matter. ...

We report on the geochemistry of hydrocarbons and pore waters down to 62.5 mbsf, collected by drilling with the MARUM‐MeBo70 and by gravity coring at the Lunde pockmark in the Vestnesa Ridge. Our data document the origin and transformations of volatiles feeding gas emissions previously documented in this region. Gas hydrates are present where a fracture network beneath the pockmark focusses migration ...

The approximately 2,220–2,060 million years old Lomagundi–Jatuli Event was the longest positive carbon isotope excursion in Earth history and is traditionally interpreted to reflect an increased organic carbon burial and a transient rise in atmospheric O₂. However, it is widely held that O₂ levels collapsed for more than a billion years after this. Here we show that black shales ...

The microbial key players at methane seeps are methanotrophic archaea and sulfate-reducing bacteria. They form spherical aggregates and jointly mediate the sulfate-dependent anaerobic oxidation of methane (SD–AOM: CH4 + SO42– → HCO3– + HS– + H2O), thereby inducing the precipitation of authigenic seep carbonates. While seep carbonates constitute valuable archives for molecular fossils of SD–AOM-mediating ...

The ~2.0 Ga Zaonega Formation (ZF) holds one of the oldest phosphorites in the geologic record, reaching >15% P₂O₅. Understanding the depositional conditions that enabled sedimentary phosphorus enrichment in this unit will thus help us to interpret the significance of the temporal distribution of phosphorites in Earth’s early history. Here we use an array of major and trace ...

The late-Cryogenian – Ediacaran geological framework for South China is constructed principally from sedimentary successions preserved in the central and western regions of the Yangtze Block. New stratigraphic and carbonate-carbon isotope data allow us to extend that framework into the exhumed HP-UHP subduction complexes of the eastern Dabie and Sulu orogens that separate the South and North China ...

To better understand the present and past carbon cycling and transformation processes in methane-influenced fjord and shelf areas of northern Norway, we compared two sediment cores from the Hola trough and from Ullsfjorden. We investigated (1) the organic matter composition and sedimentological characteristics to study the sources of organic carbon (C_org) and the factors influencing ...

Gas hydrates stored on continental shelves are susceptible to dissociation triggered by environmental changes. Knowledge of the timescales of gas hydrate dissociation and subsequent methane release are critical in understanding the impact of marine gas hydrates on the ocean–atmosphere system. Here we report a methane efflux chronology from five sites, at depths of 220–400 m, in the southwest Barents ...

We investigated methane-derived authigenic carbonate (MDAC) crusts and nodules from a cold seep site on the northern Norwegian continental shelf in ca. 220 m water depth to determine the timing and mode of their formation. Gas bubbling observed during remotely operated vehicle (ROV)-assisted sampling of MDAC crusts revealed ongoing seep activity. Authigenic carbonates were present as crusts on the ...