Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Magnetic Susceptibility As A Proxy For Investigating Microbially Mediated Iron Reduction, Farag M. Mewafy, Estella A. Atekwana, D. Dale Werkema, Lee D. Slater, Dimitrios Ntarlagiannis, Andre Revil, Magnus E. Skold, Geoffrey N. Delin

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

We investigated magnetic susceptibility (MS) variations in hydrocarbon contaminated sediments. Our objective was to determine if MS can be used as an intrinsic bioremediation indicator due to the activity of iron-reducing bacteria. A contaminated and an uncontaminated core were retrieved from a site contaminated with crude oil near Bemidji, Minnesota and subsampled for MS measurements. The contaminated core revealed enriched MS zones within the hydrocarbon smear zone, which is related to iron-reduction coupled to oxidation of hydrocarbon compounds and the vadose zone, which is coincident with a zone of methane depletion suggesting aerobic or anaerobic oxidation of methane is coupled …