About This Cover
Cover photograph (Copyright © 2005, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.): Nodule-shaped microbial mats growing on top of a methanotrophic reef (~0.8 m height) in the anoxic Black Sea. Gaseous methane entering the reef structure from the sediment is temporarily stored in the cavities of the mat nodules. The gas leaves the nodules through terminal openings when overpressure is reached. Manifold shapes of such reef structures have been discovered above methane seeps along the Romanian and Crimean shelf. This underwater photograph was taken by Bo Barker Jørgensen (Max Planck Institute [MPI], Bremen, Germany) during a dive with the submersible JAGO (MPI, Seewiesen, Germany) as part of the European Commission Fifth Framework Programme project METROL (C. Borowski, coordinator; MPI, Bremen [www.metrol.org]). (See related article on page 6375.)
[Table of Contents]
Copyright © 2009 by the American Society for Microbiology. For an alternate route to Journals.ASM.org, visit: http://intl-journals.asm.org | More Info»