Microbial Weathering Of Minerals And Rocks In Natural Environments

Microbes are active agents of environmental change. From the depths of the Earth's crust to the heights of the upper atmosphere, microorganisms alter the physicochemical conditions surrounding them. Their activity provides important ecosystem services to the wider biosphere, making essential elements such as carbon, sulfur, phosphorus, and iron available for higher organisms. One such environmental interaction is the weathering of minerals and rocks by microbial communities, a key process that underpins soil formation and global biogeochemical cycles. By facilitating mineral dissolution and rock degradation, microbes enhance the release of elements from their geological reservoirs and perform significant elemental transformations. Under what conditions microbes perform these activities and to what extent they impact their surrounding environment, are key topics in geobiology. In this chapter, various aspects of microbial mineral and rock weathering will be explored. Key concepts and terminology will be introduced, followed by an overview of the mechanisms used by microorganisms to perform weathering activity. Sections covering the methodological approaches used by researchers to study microbial rock weathering processes, including detecting the traces or "biosignatures" such microbial activity leaves behind on geological materials, will be provided. The effect of microbial rock weathering on the wider microbial ecosystem, including the endurance and functional capacity of microbial communities, is also explored. Finally, this chapter will discuss the emerging field of microbial biogeomorphology, the study of how biological activity at the micron scale can impact the environment at meter to kilometer scales, contributing to the processes that shape Earth's landscapes.