Aerobic Microbial Respiration in 86-Million-Year-Old Deep-Sea Red Clay

Microbial communities can subsist at depth in marine sediments without fresh supply of organic matter for millions of years. At threshold sedimentation rates of 1 millimeter per 1000 years, the low rates of microbial community metabolism in the North Pacific Gyre allow sediments to remain oxygenated tens of meters below the sea floor. We found that the oxygen respiration rates dropped from 10 micromoles of O₂ liter⁻¹1 year⁻¹ near the sediment-water interface to 0.001 micromoles of O₂ liter⁻¹ year⁻¹ at 30-meter depth within 86 million-year-old sediment. The cell-specific respiration rate decreased with depth but stabilized at around 10⁻³ femtomoles of O₂ cell⁻¹ day⁻¹ 10 meters below the seafloor. This result indicated that the community size is controlled by the rate of carbon oxidation and thereby by the low available energy flux.