Earth’s Cryosphere, 2011, Vol. XV, No. 4, p. 79-87
BIOGEOCHEMISTRY OF PERMAFROST IN CENTRAL YAKUTIA
A.V. Brouchkov1, V.P. Melnikov1, M.V. Schelchkova2, G.I. Griva3, V.E. Repin4, E.V. Brenner4, M. Tanaka5
1 Tyumen State Oil and Gas University, 56, Volodarskogo str., Tyumen, 625000, Russia; brouchkov@hotmail.com
2 Ammosov North-East Federal University, 58, Belinskogo str., Yakutsk, 677000, Russia; rector-svfu@ysu.ru
3 Tyumen Science Center, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 86, Malygina str., Tyumen, 625000, Russia; brouchkov@hotmail.com
4 Institute of Chemical Biology and Fundamental Medicine, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 8, Akad. Lavrentieva, Novosibirsk, 630090, Russia; niboch@niboch.nsc.ru
5 Hokkaido University, Kita 8, Nishi 5, Kita-ku, Sapporo, 060-0808, Japan; kouryu@general.hokudai.ac.jp
Permafrost is widespread in the Northern Hemisphere and is as old as hundreds of thousands to millions of years. Frozen ground stores living microorganisms which remain unfrozen in the relatively warm environment (–2…–8 °C) but are immobilized and may be about the age of the host permafrost. A strain of Bacillus sp. was isolated from ~3 Ma permafrost and its 16S rDNA sequence was identified. A large group of microorganisms including fungi was isolated from the wedge ice. Permafrost deposits contain invertase, urease, katalase and dehydrogenase.