Barium bioaccumulation by bacterial biofilms and implications for Ba cycling and use of Ba proxies

Despite the broad use of barium as a proxy for past ocean export production, the underlying mechanisms of barite precipitation remain unknown. Here, the authors show, under experimental conditions, that barium bioaccumulation on bacterially produced biofilms is the crucial step for barite formation.

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Francisca Martinez-Ruiz, Fadwa Jroundi, Adina Paytan, Isabel Guerra-Tschuschke, María del Mar Abad, María Teresa González-Muñoz
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Nature Portfolio 2018-04-01
Series:Nature Communications
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-04069-z