bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/348011; this version posted September 5, 2018. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under aCC-BY-ND 4.0 International license. 1 Gas seepage pockmark microbiomes suggest the presence of 2 sedimentary coal seams in the Öxarfjörður graben of NE-Iceland 3 4 Guðný Vala Þorsteinsdóttir1,2, Anett Blischke3, M. Auður Sigurbjörnsdóttir1, Finnbogi Óskarsson4, 5 Þórarinn Sveinn Arnarson5†, Kristinn P. Magnússon1,2,6, and Oddur Vilhelmsson1,6 6 7 1University of Akureyri, Faculty of Natural Resource Sciences, Borgir v. Nordurslod, 600 8 Akureyri, Iceland. 9 2Icelandic Institute of Natural History, Borgir v. Nordurslod, 600 Akureyri, Iceland 10 3Íslenskar orkurannsóknir / Iceland GeoSurvey (ISOR), Akureyri Branch, Rangarvollum, 600 11 Akureyri, Iceland 12 4Íslenskar orkurannsóknir / Iceland GeoSurvey (ISOR), Department of Geothermal 13 Engineering, Grensasvegi 9, 108 Reykjavik, Iceland 14 5Orkustofnun / The Icelandic Energy Authority, Grensasvegi 9, 108 Reykjavik, Iceland 15 (†Passed away) 16 6Biomedical Center, University of Iceland, Vatnsmyrarvegur 16, 101 Reykjavik, Iceland 17 18 Correspondence: Oddur Vilhelmsson,
[email protected] 19 20 Abstract 21 Natural gas seepage pockmarks are found off and onshore in the Öxarfjörður graben, 22 NE Iceland. The bacterial communities of two onshore seepage sites were analysed by 23 amplicon sequencing of 16S rDNA, along with determining the geochemical 24 characteristics, hydrocarbon content and the carbon isotope composition of the sites. 25 While one site was found to be characterised by biogenic origin of methane gas, with 26 carbon isotope ratio δ¹³C [‰] = -63.2, high content of organic matter and complex 1 bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/348011; this version posted September 5, 2018.