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Biogenic Methane

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Encyclopedia of Geochemistry

Part of the book series: Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series ((EESS))

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Definition

Biogenic methane is generated via a process called microbial methanogenesis, which is uniquely performed by methanogenic Archaea, the methanogens, namely several subbranches of Euryarchaeota on the 16S rRNA-based phylogenetic tree of life, i.e., Methanomicrobiales, Methanosarcinales, Methanococcales, and Methanobacteriales (Pace 2009). Microbial methanogenesis is the main terminal process of subsurface anaerobic organic-matter biodegradation (Head et al. 2003). Therefore, methanogenesis is important in the global carbon cycle, contributing to the terminal mineralization of organic matter. Figure 1 provides a summary of processes (biological and thermochemical) and substrates (organic and inorganic) for methane generation in nature and clarifies associated terminology. Accepted synonyms: microbial methane.

Biogenic Methane, Fig. 1
figure 21 figure 21

Classification and proposed nomenclature of methane according to its process of origin (X-axis) and directly utilized substrates (Y-axis; schematic...

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  1. Geoservices, Schlumberger, Roissy, France

    Dariusz Strąpoć

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  1. Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA

    William M. White

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Strąpoć, D. (2018). Biogenic Methane. In: White, W.M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Geochemistry. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-39312-4_166

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