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ABSTRACT: Stable Carbon Isotopic Composition of Lipids of Hydrocarbon Seep Mussels and Whitefish: Carbon Flow Implications

FANG, JAISONG, Geochemical and Environmental Research Group, College of Geoscience, Texas A & M University, College Station, TX, ABRAJANO JUN, Department of Earth Sciences, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada, and PAUL A. COMET and JAMES M. BROOKS, Geochemical and Environmental Research Group, College of Geoscience, Texas A & M University, College Station, TX

The individual fatty acids of hydrocarbon seep mussels (seep mytilid II) and whitefish exhibit very light isotope {13}C values, from -50.0 o/oo to -57.9 o/oo, and from -25.2 o/oo to -27.1 o/oo, respectively. Unsaturated fatty acids have lighter isotope {13}C than saturated ones. The variations in isotope {13}C are up to 5.1 o/oo (mussel #1), 6.7 o/oo (mussel #2), and 2.7 o/oo (whitefish). A kinetic isotopic effect in the biosynthesis of fatty acids and intermolecular isotope fractionation during fatty acid desaturation and elongation is suggested to account for the observed distribution pattern. The systematic decrease of isotope {13}C in the order of mussel body, gill, and fatty acids, reflects the pathway of carbon flow as well as the biosynthetic locus in the mussels-bacteria syste .

Fatty acids of whitefish has significantly heavier isotope {13}C compared to those of mussels, reflecting distinctly different food source of the animals.

 

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #91014©1992 AAPG GCAGS and GC-SEPM Meeting, Jackson, Mississippi, October 21-23, 1992 (2009)