Journal article
Changes in the deep subsurface microbial biosphere resulting from a field-scale CO2 geosequestration experiment
A Mu, C Boreham, HX Leong, RR Haese, JW Moreau
Frontiers in Microbiology | Published : 2014
Abstract
Subsurface microorganisms may respond to increased CO2 levels in ways that significantly affect pore fluid chemistry. Changes in CO2 concentration or speciation may result from the injection of supercritical CO2 (scCO2) into deep aquifers. Therefore, understanding subsurface microbial responses to scCO2, or unnaturally high levels of dissolved CO2, will help to evaluate the use of geosequestration to reduce atmospheric CO2 emissions. This study characterized microbial community changes at the 16S rRNA gene level during a scCO2 geosequestration experiment in the 1.4 km-deep Paaratte Formation of the Otway Basin, Australia. One hundred and fifty tons of mixed scCO2 and groundwater was pumped i..
View full abstractGrants
Funding Acknowledgements
The authors acknowledge the support of the CO2CRC, and funding from the Commonwealth of Australia and industry sponsors through the CO2CRC Program. We thank Prof. Richard Strugnell and Gerrit Voordouw, Assoc. Prof. Timothy Stinear and Drs. Barry Freifeld, Bernard Pope, Helen Billman-Jacobe, Jonathan Ennis-King (Figure S2, In situ temperature profile), Kathryn Holt, Linda Stalker and Ulrike Schacht for helpful advice and comments on our manuscript.