An interdisciplinary team of researchers funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) has concluded that bacteria in a lake 800 meters (2,600 feet) beneath the West Antarctic Ice Sheet may digest methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, preventing its release into the atmosphere.
An interdisciplinary team of researchers funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) has concluded that bacteria in a lake 800 meters (2,600 feet) beneath the West Antarctic Ice Sheet may digest methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, preventing its release into the atmosphere.
As part of the NSF-funded Whillans Ice Stream Subglacial Access Research Drilling (WISSARD) project, the researchers successfully drilled through the ice sheet in 2013 to reach Lake Whillans. They retrieved water and sediment samples from a body of water that had been isolated from direct contact with the atmosphere for many thousands of years.
The prevalence of methane-consuming bacteria in the upper lake sediment suggests a "methane biofilter" prevents the gas from entering the subglacial water, where it can eventually drain into the ocean and be released into the atmosphere. The bacteria obtain energy from digesting the methane.
The team, which includes researchers from Montana State University, Louisiana State University and Aberystwyth University in Wales, used a combination of measurements of methane concentrations and genomic analyses to describe how lake bacteria chemically convert methane in a way that reduces the warming potential of subglacial gases during ice sheet retreats.
Read more at National Science Foundation
Image: Methane-eating bacteria in lakes deep beneath the Antarctic ice sheet may reduce greenhouse gas emissions. (Credit: Ken Markoff)
