Geochemical cycles of all nonconservative elements are mediated by microorganisms over nanometer spatial scales. The pelagic seascape is known to possess microstructure imposed by heterogeneous distributions of particles, polymeric gels, biologically important chemicals, and microbes. While indispensable, most traditional oceanographic observational approaches overlook this heterogeneity and ignore subtleties, such as activity hot spots, symbioses, niche partitioning, and intrapopulation phenotypic variations, that can provide a deeper mechanistic understanding of planktonic ecosystem function. As part of the movement toward cultivation-independent tools in microbial oceanography, techniques to examine the ecophysiology of individual populations and their role in chemical transformations at spatial scales relevant to microorganisms have been developed. This review presents technologies that enable geochemical and microbiological interrogations at spatial scales ranging from 0.02 to a few hundred micrometers, particularly focusing on atomic force microscopy, nanoscale secondary ion mass spectrometry, and confocal Raman microspectroscopy and introducing promising approaches for future applications in marine sciences.
Great Bahama Bank (GBB) is the principal location of the formation and accumulation of ooids (concentrically coated, sand-size carbonate grains) in the world today, and as such has been the focus of studies on all aspects of ooids for more than half a century. Our view from a close look at this vast body of literature coupled with our continuing interests stresses that biological mechanisms (microbially mediated organomineralization) are very important in the formation of ooids, whereas the controlling factor for the distribution and size of ooid sand bodies is the physical energy. Mapping and coring studies of the modern ooid sand bodies on GBB provide insight into the rock record from different perspectives. An important consequence of the dual influence of ooid formation and distribution is that the geochemical signature of ooids is not in equilibrium with the seawater in which ooids form; therefore, extracting the paleophysical energy record from oolitic deposits is potentially more accurate than doing so for the paleochemical record.