Cañaveras Juan Carlos, Cuezva Soledad, Sanchez-Moral Sergio, Lario Javier, Laiz Leonila, Gonzalez Juan Miguel, Saiz-Jimenez Cesareo
Unidad Asociada CSIC-UA, Laboratorio de Petrologia Aplicada, Departamento de Ciencias de la Tierra, Universidad de Alicante, Alicante, Spain.
Naturwissenschaften. 2006 Jan;93(1):27-32. doi: 10.1007/s00114-005-0052-3. Epub 2005 Oct 21.
In this study, we show that moonmilk subaerial speleothems in Altamira Cave (Spain) consist of a network of fiber calcite crystals and active microbial structures. In Altamira moonmilks, the study of the typology and distribution of fiber crystals, extracellular polymeric substances, and microorganisms allowed us to define the initial stages of fiber crystal formation in recent samples as well as the variations in the microstructural arrangement in more evolved stages. Thus, we have been able to show the existence of a relationship among the different types of fiber crystals and their origins. This allowed us to outline a model that illustrates the different stages of formation of the moonmilk, developed on different substrata, concluding that microbes influence physicochemical precipitation, resulting in a variety of fiber crystal morphologies and sizes.
在本研究中，我们表明西班牙阿尔塔米拉洞穴中的月奶地表石笋由纤维方解石晶体网络和活跃的微生物结构组成。在阿尔塔米拉月奶中，对纤维晶体、细胞外聚合物和微生物的类型学及分布进行研究，使我们能够确定近期样本中纤维晶体形成的初始阶段，以及更成熟阶段微观结构排列的变化。因此，我们得以证明不同类型纤维晶体与其成因之间存在关联。这使我们能够勾勒出一个模型，该模型说明了在不同基质上形成的月奶的不同阶段，得出微生物影响物理化学沉淀，从而产生各种纤维晶体形态和尺寸的结论。
