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Exploring deep microbial life in coal-bearing sediment down to ~2.5 km below the ocean floor
- F. Inagaki1,2,*,
- K.-U. Hinrichs3,*,
- Y. Kubo4,5,
- M. W. Bowles3,
- V. B. Heuer3,
- W.-L. Hong6,†,
- T. Hoshino1,2,
- A. Ijiri1,2,
- H. Imachi2,7,
- M. Ito1,2,
- M. Kaneko2,8,
- M. A. Lever9,‡,
- Y.-S. Lin3,§,
- B. A. Methé10,
- S. Morita11,
- Y. Morono1,2,
- W. Tanikawa1,2,
- M. Bihan10,
- S. A. Bowden12,
- M. Elvert3,
- C. Glombitza9,
- D. Gross13,
- G. J. Harrington14,
- T. Hori15,
- K. Li10,
- D. Limmer12,||,
- C.-H. Liu16,
- M. Murayama17,
- N. Ohkouchi2,8,
- S. Ono18,
- Y.-S. Park19,¶,
- S. C. Phillips20,
- X. Prieto-Mollar3,
- M. Purkey21,#,
- N. Riedinger22,**,
- Y. Sanada4,5,
- J. Sauvage23,
- G. Snyder24,††,
- R. Susilawati25,
- Y. Takano2,8,
- E. Tasumi7,
- T. Terada26,
- H. Tomaru27,
- E. Trembath-Reichert28,
- D. T. Wang18,
- Y. Yamada5,29
- 1Kochi Institute for Core Sample Research, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC), Nankoku, Kochi 783-8502, Japan.
- 2Research and Development Center for Marine Resources, JAMSTEC, Yokosuka 237-0061, Japan.
- 3MARUM Center for Marine Environmental Sciences, University of Bremen, D-28359 Bremen, Germany.
- 4Center for Deep-Earth Exploration, JAMSTEC, Yokohama 236-0061, Japan.
- 5Research and Development Center for Ocean Drilling Science, JAMSTEC, Yokohama 236-0001, Japan.
- 6College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331, USA.
- 7Department of Subsurface Geobiological Analysis and Research, JAMSTEC, Yokosuka 237-0061, Japan.
- 8Department of Biogeochemistry, JAMSTEC, Yokosuka 237-0061, Japan.
- 9Center for Geomicrobiology, Department of Bioscience, Aarhus University, DK-8000 Aarhus C, Denmark.
- 10Department of Environmental Genomics, J. Craig Venter Institute, Rockville, MD 20850, USA.
- 11Geological Survey of Japan, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8567, Japan.
- 12Department of Geology and Petroleum Geology, School of Geosciences, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen AB2A 3UE, UK.
- 13Department of Applied Geosciences and Geophysics, Montanuniversität, 8700 Leoben, Austria.
- 14School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK.
- 15Environmental Management Research Institute, AIST, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8569, Japan.
- 16The State Key Laboratory of Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, School of Life Science, Nanjing University, Nanjing, Jiangsu 210093, China.
- 17Center for Advanced Marine Core Research, Kochi University, Nankoku, Kochi 783-8502, Japan.
- 18Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
- 19Petroleum and Marine Resources Research Division, Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon 305-350, Korea.
- 20Department of Earth Sciences, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH 03824, USA.
- 21Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Nebraska–Lincoln, Lincoln, NE 68588, USA.
- 22Department of Earth Sciences, University of California Riverside, Riverside, CA 92521, USA.
- 23Graduate School of Oceanography, University of Rhode Island, Narragansett, RI 02882, USA.
- 24Department of Earth Science, Rice University, Houston, TX 77005, USA.
- 25School of Earth Science, University of Queensland, Brisbane Queensland 4072, Australia.
- 26Marine Works Japan, Yokosuka 237-0063, Japan.
- 27Department of Earth Sciences, Graduate School of Science, Chiba University, Chiba 263-8522, Japan.
- 28Geological and Planetary Sciences, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA.
- 29Department of Urban Management, Graduate School of Engineering, Kyoto University, Kyoto 615-8540, Japan.
- ↵*Corresponding author. E-mail: inagaki{at}jamstec.go.jp (F.I.); khinrichs{at}uni-bremen.de (K.-U.H.)
↵† Present address: CAGE - Centre for Arctic Gas Hydrate, Environment and Climate, Department of Geology, UiT The Arctic University of Norway, N-9037 Tromsø, Norway.
↵‡ Present address: Department of Environmental Systems Science, ETH Zurich, 8092 Zurich, Switzerland.
↵§ Present address: Department of Oceanography, National Sun Yat-Sen University, Kaohsiung 80424, Taiwan.
↵|| Present address: Adrok, Edinburgh, Scotland EH6 5NX, UK.
↵¶ Deceased.
↵# Present address: Noble Energy, 1625 Broadway, Suite 2200, Denver, CO 80202, USA.
↵** Present address: Boone Pickens School of Geology, 105 Noble Research Center, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK 74078-3031, USA.
↵†† Present address: Gas Hydrate Research Laboratory, Meiji University, Tokyo 101-8301, Japan.
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Vol. 349, Issue 6246, pp. 420-424
DOI: 10.1126/science.aaa6882