Kathleen A. Campbell

University of Auckland · School of Environment

Geyserite is a type of terrestrial siliceous hot spring deposit (sinter) formed subaerially in proximal vent areas, with near‐neutral pH, alkali chloride discharge fluids characterized by initial high temperatures (~73°C to up to 100°C) that fluctuate rapidly in relation to dynamic hydrology, seasonality, wind, and other environmental parameters. W...

This study explores the paleobiological significance of pyritic stromatolites from the 3.48 billion-year-old Dresser Formation, Pilbara Craton, by combining paleoenvironmental analyses with observations from well-preserved stromatolites in newly obtained drill cores. These structures exhibit stratiform and columnar to domal shapes with wavy to wrin...

Siliceous hot spring deposits, or sinters, deposit from hot spring discharge at Earth's surface and are sites of exceptional preservation of biosignatures. Their macro‐ and micro‐textures are regarded as important evidence of past microbial activities in hydrothermal environments. However, biology mimics do occur, and bona fide microbial textures c...

Phanerozoic sinter deposits have been reported globally, with their identification mainly based on sedimentological, petrological, and mineralogical studies. In this study, a detailed geochemical investigation, combined with sedimentological characterization, was conducted on the Wugonglilu siliceous deposit, a Cretaceous (106 Ma) sinter in NE Chin...

Hydrothermal silica deposits on the surface of Mars with textures analogous to terrestrial hot spring deposits are, arguably, one of the best potential targets in the search for evidence of life beyond Earth. Here we investigate terrestrial hot spring digitate silica structures (modern: El Tatio, Chile; Mars Pool at Rotokawa geothermal area, and Te...

Terrestrial hot springs harbor diverse microbial communities whose compositions are shaped by the wide-ranging physico-chemistries of individual springs. The effect of enormous physico-chemical differences on bacterial and archaeal distributions and population structures is little understood. We therefore analysed the prevalence and relative abunda...

Gas chromatography–mass spectrometry was applied to samples collected from an exceptionally well-preserved Late Jurassic (∼150 Ma) sinter complex of the Claudia palaeo-geothermal field, Deseado Massif geological province, Argentinean Patagonia, which, despite its age, has never been deeply buried. Results indicate that the distal sinter apron has a...

The East Coast Basin of eastern North Island, New Zealand, is one of a few places globally that offers the opportunity to reconstruct a spatiotemporal record of long-lived (ca. 25 Ma duration) hydrocarbon seepage from both onshore, exhumed accretionary prism and forearc rocks and their adjacent, offshore, modern convergent tectonic settings. Compar...

Premise: The sooty molds are a globally distributed ecological group of ascomycetes with epiphyllous, saprotrophic habit, comprising several phylogenetically distant taxa (i.e., members of the classes Dothideomycetes and Eurotiomycetes). Their fossil record extends almost continuously back to the early Cretaceous; however, they are hypothesized to...

Taphonomic studies were carried out at Laguna Flecha Negra locality (Bahía Laura Complex, Middle-Late Jurassic), Santa Cruz Province, Argentina. Sedimentary facies and preservational styles were defined to recognize plant taphofacies in the studied sequence. Eleven taphofacies were identified and plant sources within a volcanic and geothermal syste...

Abstract Background Terrestrial hot spring settings span a broad spectrum of physicochemistries. Physicochemical parameters, such as pH and temperature, are key factors influencing differences in microbial composition across diverse geothermal areas. Nonetheless, analysis of hot spring pools from the Taupo Volcanic Zone (TVZ), New Zealand, revealed...

Meiofaunal assemblages are often overlooked, yet they are important ecological components of estuarine ecosystems. To evaluate variations in meiofaunal communities in estuarine habitats, we conducted a comprehensive analysis of meiofaunal density, distribution and relationships with environmental parameters in a mangrove-dominated ecosystem at Mang...

A new cyanobacterium, Patagonifilum jurassicum nov. gen. et sp., is structurally preserved in Late Jurassic hydrothermally influenced siliceous chert from the Deseado Massif, Patagonia, Argentina. The cyanobacterium occurs in the form of loosely to densely spaced, heteropolar filaments (up to 4.5 μm wide) that form turf-like stands, or spherical to...

Recent discoveries of geyserite and siliceous sinter with textural biosignatures in the ∼3.5 Ga Dresser Formation of the Pilbara Craton, Western Australia, extended the record of inhabited subaerial hot springs on Earth by ∼3 billion years, back to the time when siliceous sinter deposits are known to have formed on Mars (e.g., at Columbia Hills, Gu...

Hot spring environments are commonly dominated by silica sinters that precipitate by the rapid cooling of silica-saturated fluids and the activity of microbial communities. However, the potential for preservation of organic traces of life in silica sinters back through time is not well understood. This is important for the exploration of early life...

Digitate siliceous hot spring deposits are a form of biomediated sinter that is relatively common in the Taupo Volcanic Zone (TVZ), New Zealand, and elsewhere on Earth. Such deposits have gained prominence recently because of their morphological similarity to opaline silica rocks of likely hot spring origin found by the Spirit rover on Mars and the...

In 1941, a 72-m-deep bore (Healy's Bore 2; HB2) at the Hipaua-Waihi-Tokaanu geothermal field, Taupo Volcanic Zone, New Zealand, tapped alkali chloride water of 145 °C at the bottom of the well. Since then, thermal fluid (<100 °C) has intermittently flowed from the HB2 wellhead, resulting in formation of a 20 m wide by 50 m long sinter terrace. The...

The study of life in the hot springs of Yellowstone National Park (YNP) began with scientific expeditions led by F. V. Hayden in 1871, 1872, and 1878. Other investigations to the turn of the century pushed the upper temperature limits known for life to 89.5 °C and made the first connections between life and the precipitation of siliceous sinter (e....

Premise of the Research: Despite their ecological significance in modern terrestrial ecosystems, knowledge about the evolution of arbuscular mycorrhizae based on the fossil record is still scarce, especially concerning the case of root nodules harboring arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi as in some extant gymnosperms and angiosperms. Exceptionally preser...

The origin and age of opaline silica deposits discovered by the Spirit rover adjacent to the Home Plate feature in the Columbia Hills of Gusev crater remains debated, in part because of their proximity to sulfur-rich soils. Processes related to fumarolic activity and to hot springs and/or geysers are the leading candidates. Both processes are known...

Jurassic siliceous hot-spring (sinter) deposits from Argentine Patagonia were evaluated to determine the distribution and preservation quality of their entombed microbial fabrics. Detailed study showed that the Claudia palaeo-geothermal field hosts the best-preserved sinter apron in the Deseado Massif geological province, where we also found hot-sp...

The Late Miocene Whitianga Volcanic Centre of the Coromandel Volcanic Zone, North Island, NewZealand, is host to 18 known, siliceous and intensely silicified deposits including: silicified volcanics; sediments of inferred lacustrine, fluvial and mud pool origin; siliceous hot spring deposits, or sinters; and silicic veins. Collectively these silice...

A new and unusual type of fossil, siliceous hot-spring deposit (sinter)—comprising monomictic, quartzose conglomerate encrusted with silicified microbial laminates—has been recognized in distal portions of Jurassic and Miocene paleo-geothermal fields of South and North America, respectively. The siliceous clasts are inferred to have originated as c...

Methane-derived authigenic carbonates (MDACs) in Miocene bathyal mudstones in North Island, New Zealand are typically expressed as either sub-seafloor conduit concretions or as seafloor seep limestones, but rarely are both types exposed in outcrop at one locality. Consequently, any potential genetic link between them is usually inferred. This also...

The Atastra Creek siliceous hot spring deposit, or sinter, occurs in the Paramount-Bald Peak alteration zone, due north of the Bodie precious metals mining district in the Miocene Bodie Hills volcanic field, California and Nevada, U.S.A. Distinctive features include its geomorphically intact geyser vent mounds, the presence of growth-fault-stepped...

The Hauraki Goldfield of the Coromandel Volcanic Zone, North Island, New Zealand, hosts up to 19 known siliceous hot spring deposits, or sinters, some directly associated with Au–Ag ore bodies, in a Miocene–Pliocene, sub-aerial, calc-alkaline volcanic arc overlying Jurassic meta-sedimentary basement. Sinters are surface expressions of predominately...

Hypotheses have emerged that hydrothermal settings on early Earth likely were home to the first living cells. Among these, hot spring fields on land are strong candidates for the origin of life. The recent identification of microbial biosignatures in ~3.48 Ga hot spring/geyser silica deposits lends support to this hypothesis. Taken together, these...

Three new fossil species of lucinids, Meganodontia haunuiensis, Elliptiolucina neozelandica, and Lucinoma saetheri, are described from lower to middle Miocene hydrocarbon seep carbonates from north and south of Hawke Bay, eastern North Island, New Zealand. Of these taxa Meganodontia haunuiensis is confined to seep sites south of Hawke Bay, while El...

An intertidal shore platform in bathyal mudstones of the Late Miocene Pohutu Formation near East Cape, North Island, New Zealand, hosts many impressive dolomitic conduit concretions having predominantly doughnut morphologies up to 6 m across. Carbon isotope values (δ¹³C + 6 to + 9‰ PDB) are interpreted to show that the carbon for dolomite precipita...

This corrects the article DOI: 10.1038/ncomms15263.

From the 1950s, extraction of thermal fluids to generate electricity at Wairakei, Taupo Volcanic Zone, New Zealand, heralded a rapid transformation of surface manifestations at nearby Geyser Valley, 1 km NW of the power station. Active geysers and hot-springs fed by alkali-chloride waters ceased by 1968, replaced by acidic steam-dominated condition...

The Deseado Massif hosts numerous Late Jurassic (150 Ma) fossil geothermal systems related to an extensive volcanic event developed in a diffuse extensional back-arc setting. Detailed mapping, petrography and mineralogical observations of El Macanudo outcrops verify that it represents a hot-spring-related travertine partially replaced by silica and...

The ca. 3.48 Ga Dresser Formation, Pilbara Craton, Western Australia, is well known for hosting some of Earth’s earliest convincing evidence of life (stromatolites, fractionated sulfur/carbon isotopes, microfossils) within a dynamic, low-eruptive volcanic caldera affected by voluminous hydrothermal fluid circulation. However, missing from the calde...

Supplementary Figures

The Kohuamuri siliceous sinter is the largest known fossil hot-spring system in the Hauraki Goldfield, a 200 × 40 km volcanic terrain with at least 50 adularia-illite epithermal deposits formed 16.3–5.6 Ma within the Coromandel Volcanic Zone, New Zealand. The sinter is associated with rhyolite and ignimbrite of the Whitianga Caldera (Miocene–Plioce...

Abstract Fourteen bivalve taxa belonging to 11 families are present in at least 13 early to middle Miocene hydrocarbon seep deposits in the East Coast Basin, North Island, New Zealand. Among these are at least three new species, one of which, Semeloidea (s. l.) bexhavenensis sp. nov. (Lasaeidae), is described here. New distribution data are recorde...

The search for traces of life is one of the principal objectives of Mars exploration. Central to this objective is the concept of habitability, the set of conditions that allows the appearance of life and successful establishment of microorganisms in any one location. While environmental conditions may have been conducive to the appearance of life...

New Zealand and Argentine (Late Jurassic-Recent) siliceous hot-spring deposits (sinter) reveal preservation pathways of environmentally controlled, microbe-dominated sedimentary facies over geological time scales. Texturally distinctive, laminated to thinly layered, dense and vertically oriented, microtubular "palisade" fabric is common in low-temp...

Some new species of Thyasira described from hydrocarbon seep deposits. Actually published in The Nautilus, as can be seen from the PDF, but ResearchGate cannot find it for me to add as officially published work. Please also note that I am fifth author, not first, but having to upload it as unpublished work, ResearchGate insists my name is put first...

Interacting, diverse microbe-sediment systems exist in natural environments today but have not yet been recognized in the oldest records of life on Earth (older than 3.3 Ga) because of lack of distinctive biomarker molecules and patchy preservation of microbial paleocommunities. In an in-situ outcrop- to microbial-scale study, we have differentiate...

A new species of bivalve, Thyasira (Thyasira) beui, is described from lower to middle Miocene hydrocarbon seep deposits from the North Island of New Zealand. Thyasira (T.) nakazawai Matsumoto, 1971 is redescribed from lower Miocene seep deposits in central Honshu of Japan, and T. (T.) sp. from Paleocene wood-fall communities in eastern Hokkaido is...

Siliceous hot-spring deposits, or sinters, typically form in active, terrestrial (on land), volcanic terrains where magmatically heated waters circulating through the shallow crust emerge at the Earth’s surface as silica-charged geothermal fluids. Geyserites are sinters affiliated with the highest temperature (~ 75-100 °C), natural geothermal fluid...

Modern and Cenozoic deep-sea hydrothermal-vent and methane-seep communities are dominated by large tubeworms, bivalves and gastropods. In contrast, many Early Cretaceous seep communities were dominated by the largest Mesozoic rhynchonellid brachiopod, the dimerelloid Peregrinella, the paleoecologic and evolutionary traits of which are still poorly...

2014. Fossil vesicomyid bivalves from Miocene hydrocar-bon seep sites, North Island, New Zealand. Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 59 (2): 421–428. Two fossil species of vesicomyids are described from Lower to Middle Miocene hydrocarbon seep carbonates in eastern North Island, New Zealand. One elongate species is proposed as a new genus and species: N...

Late Jurassic geothermal deposits at Claudia, Argentinean Patagonia, are among the largest (40 km2) and most varied in the Deseado Massif, a 60,000 km2 volcanic province hosting precious metals (Au, Ag) mineralization generated during diffuse back arc spreading and opening of the South Atlantic Ocean. Both siliceous sinter and travertine occur in t...

Six Cretaceous methane-seep deposits are reported from the Raukumara Peninsula, eastern North Island, New Zealand. Dinoflagellate dating indicates a Late Albian to mid-Cenomanian age for three deposits from Port Awanui, and a mid-Campanian age for two deposits from Waipiro Bay and for one from Owhena Stream. The dominant petrographic fabric of the...

Authigenic carbonate precipitation occurs within marine sediments where sulfate-dependent anaerobic methane oxidation occurs. Geochemical and isotopic analyses of authigenic carbonates are commonly used as indicators of carbon sources and environmental conditions present during carbonate formation, but burial diagenesis and recrystallization can ov...

Fossil methane seeps are preserved in late Eocene through Pliocene marine sedimentary units of the Cascadia margin of the northeastern Pacific. All Cascadia fossil seeps are situated in the uplifted accretionary wedge that overlies extensive Middle Eocene coal-bearing units and the Paleocene-Early Eocene Siletzia large igneous province. This study...

2013. Worldwide distribution of the modio− morphid bivalve genus Caspiconcha in late Mesozoic hydrocarbon seeps. Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 58 (2): 357–382. Exceptionally well preserved specimens of the bivalve mollusc Modiola major were collected from a Lower Cretaceous (Barremian) hydrocarbon seep deposit in northern California. This material,...

Hydrothermal activity in the TVZ occurs along two NE-SW trending alignments, located on either side of the Taupo Fault Belt (TFB). Lack of present-day hydrothermal activity within the TFB can be explained if the belt behaves as a major recharge zone to the large-scale convection system. However, siliceous hot-spring deposits (sinters) within the fa...