Distribution of tetraether lipids in sulfide chimneys at the Deyin hydrothermal field, southern Mid-Atlantic Ridge: Implication to chimney growing stage.

This study presents analysis of four chimney samples in terms of glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraether lipids (GDGTs), representing different growing stages of sulfide chimneys at the Deyin hydrothermal field, the southern mid-Atlantic ridge. The modified Bligh-Dyer method was used for lipid extraction and purification. GDGTs were analyzed with an Agilent 1200 series liquid chromatograph and 6460A triple quadrupole mass spectrometer. Our results showed that the intact polar GDGTs were more abundant than the core GDGTs in the 4 samples. The intact polar isoprenoidal GDGT-0 was the dominant composition (>70% of isoprenoidal GDGTs), indicating input of thermophilic Euryarchaeota. Most branched GDGTs were likely originated from the in situ thermophilic bacteria. However, the intact polar GDGTs in the sample at the late growing stage was similar to that in normal marine sediments, suggesting that the archaea mainly came from the planktonic Thaumarchaeota input. Our results suggested that the ratio of H-GDGTs to iGDGTs could be considered as a proxy to differentiated growing stages of a chimney. This study shed light on how to assess hydrothermal venting and sulfide chimneys in deep marine environments with a biomarker method in terms of different groups of GDGTs.