Jennifer ZwickerUniversity of Vienna | UniWien · Department of Geodynamics and Sedimentology
Jennifer Zwicker
MSc. Bakk. Bakk.
About
15
Publications
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480
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Citations since 2017
Introduction
Skills and Expertise
Additional affiliations
January 2016 - present
Publications
Publications (15)
Oil seepage is widespread in the Gulf of Mexico, which also applies to the Bay of Campeche in the southern Gulf. The ascension of crude oil and oil-derived hydrocarbons poses a challenge to most seep-dwelling organisms. On the other hand, short- and long-chain hydrocarbons have been shown to be potentially degraded by a range of heterotrophic sulfa...
Trace elements are widely used to constrain environmental conditions and biogeochemical processes through geologic time. Authigenic carbonates in particular are a reliable archive due to their ability to take up and store trace elements over long periods of time. This comparative study presents new data on the effect of ambient redox conditions on...
Marine authigenic carbonates form shallow-water microbialites, mud mounds, and hydrocarbon-seep deposits and contain appreciable amounts of trace elements that yield information on paleoenvironments. Element patterns of some of these carbonates archive metabolic processes through geologic time since many trace elements are redox-sensitive and parti...
Trace elements are actively cycled in seawater, are essential components for marine life, and are transported to the seafloor where they can become enriched in marine sediments. Trace element enrichment in marine sediments depends on local hydrography, redox conditions, and biological activity. Most redox-sensitive trace elements partake in biologi...
Ancient methane-seep carbonates are geological archives of environmental conditions and record past microbial activity. To better understand the information stored in this archive, a comparison was made of phase-specific major, trace, and rare earth element (REE) patterns, mineralogies, and textures of two early diagenetic carbonate phases in five...
Serpentinite-hosted ecosystems are potential sites where life may first have evolved on Earth. Serpentinization reactions produce strongly reducing and highly alkaline fluids that are typified by high concentrations of molecular hydrogen (H2) and methane (CH4), which can be used as an energy source by chemosynthetic life. Low-temperature serpentini...
The detection of silica-rich dust particles, as an indication for ongoing hydrothermal activity, and the presence of water and organic molecules in the plume of Enceladus, have made Saturn's icy moon a hot spot in the search for potential extraterrestrial life. Methanogenic archaea are among the organisms that could potentially thrive under the pre...
Chemosynthesis increases alkalinity and facilitates stromatolite growth at methane seeps in 731 m water depth within the oxygen minimum zone (OMZ) in the northern Arabian Sea. Microbial fabrics, including mineralized filament bundles resembling the sulfideoxidizing bacterium Thioploca, mineralized extracellular polymeric substances, and fossilized...
During the Cretaceous major episodes of oceanic anoxic conditions triggered
large scale deposition of marine black shales rich in organic carbon. Several
oceanic anoxic events (OAEs) have been documented including the Cenomanian
to Turonian OAE 2, which is among the best studied examples to date. This
study reports on a large limestone body that oc...
Hydrocarbon seeps harbor copious chemosynthesis-dependent life, the traces of which are preserved in the fossil record within authigenic carbonates. These environments are mostly characterized by seepage of methane-rich fluids, yet numerous crude oil–dominated seeps have been discovered in recent years. Oil seepage has a profound influence on the l...
The indirect proof of subsurface water oceans in icy moon like Jupiter’s Europa or Saturn’s Enceladus extended the number of potential habitats in the Solar System. The latter is one of the hot spots in the Solar System due to its erupting water plumes, which most likely origin in a global subsurface liquid water ocean. The detection of silicon-ric...
Projects
Projects (3)
R/V METEOR Cruise M114 investigated seafloor manifestations related to asphalt deposits on top of submarine ridges and knolls known as salt diapirs in the Campeche Bay of the Gulf of Mexico. Authigenic carbonates were sampled newly discovered sites using ROV Quest 4000, which will be characterized with respect to petrography and geochemistry.
This project aims at a better understanding of carbonate formation and methane production at an onshore serpentinite hosted ecosystem. Specific focus lies on characterization of the chemosynthesis-based microbial communities and to asses their role on carbonate formation, as well as the role of archaeal methanogenesis on total methane production.
Modern oil seeps differ from methane seeps in terms of microbial and macrofaunal ecology, which is in turn governed by fluid composition. In the fossil recrod this effect of varying fluid chemistry cannot yet be assessed with confidence, as reliable proxies for fluid composition are lacking. A reliable reconstruction of the composition of fluids of the oldest known hydrocarbon seeps is required to better understand the early evolution of chemosynthesis-based ecosystems and the mode of adaptation of its fauna.
