Abstract
Yellowstone National Park hydrothermal springs were investigated according to their organic geochemistry with a special focus on the Yellowstone hot spring dissolved organic matter (YDOM) that was solid-phase extracted. Here we show that YDOM has a unique chemodiversity that has not yet been observed anywhere else in aquatic surface environments and that Yellowstone hot springs are organic chemodiversity hot spots. Four main geochemically classified hot spring types (alkaline-chloride, mixed alkaline-chloride, acid-chloride-sulfate and travertine-precipitating) exhibited distinct organic molecular signatures that correlated remarkably well with the known inorganic geochemistry and manifested themselves in excitation emission matrix fluorescence, nuclear magnetic resonance, and ultrahigh resolution mass spectra. YDOM contained thousands of molecular formulas unique to Yellowstone of which 80% contained sulfur, even in low hydrogen sulfide containing alkaline-chloride springs. This unique YDOM reflects the extreme organic geochemistry present in the hydrothermal features of Yellowstone National Park.
Highlights
Physical, chemical, and biological processes control the evolution of minerals and dissolved organic matter (DOM) over a vast range of mass, length, and time[1]
The selected 10 Yellowstone hot springs were analyzed with respect to their inorganic geochemistry and physical properties and clustered into four compositional groups: travertine-precipitating, mixed-alkaline-chloride, alkaline-chloride, and acid-chloride-sulfate springs
Four representative hot springs were investigated in detail with respect to DOM composition, namely Narrow Gauge (NG), Mammoth Hot Spring Complex; Rabbit Creek (RC1), Midway Geyser Basin (mixed alkaline-chloride); Elk Geyser (EG), Norris Geyser Basin; and Octopus Spring (OS), Lower Geyser Basin (Fig. 1)
Summary
Michael Gonsior[1], Norbert Hertkorn[2], Nancy Hinman[3], Sabine E.-M. Dvorski[2], Mourad Harir[2], William J. Little is known about the organic composition, the chemical diversity of DOM in geothermal systems, despite some characterization of marine hydrothermal waters[3,4]. In situ metabolic processes of the autotrophic and heterotrophic microbial communities in hot springs are largely not understood, despite advances in our understanding of the microbial community composition[15,16,17] as well as the inorganic geochemical and mineralogical composition of the thermal waters[10]. This is further compounded by our fundamental lack of understanding of the diversity and abundance of organic compounds in these springs. A classification of types of hot springs based on the YDOM composition is evaluated
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