Global distribution of modern shallow-water marine carbonate factories: a spatial model based on environmental parameters.

Prediction of carbonate distributions at a global scale through geological time represents a challenging scientific issue, which is critical for carbonate reservoir studies and the understanding of past and future climate changes. Such prediction is even more challenging because no numerical spatial model allows for the prediction of shallow-water marine carbonates in the Modern. This study proposes to fill this gap by providing for the first time a global quantitative model based on the identification of carbonate factories and associated environmental affinities.

Preservation of ancestral Cretaceous microflora recovered from a hypersaline oil reservoir.

Microbiology of a hypersaline oil reservoir located in Central Africa was investigated with molecular and culture methods applied to preserved core samples. Here we show that the community structure was partially acquired during sedimentation, as many prokaryotic 16S rRNA gene sequences retrieved from the extracted DNA are phylogenetically related to actual Archaea inhabiting surface evaporitic environments, similar to the Cretaceous sediment paleoenvironment. Results are discussed in term of microorganisms and/or DNA preservation in such hypersaline and Mg-rich solutions.