Methanogens in iranian crude oil

One of the first deep biosphere ecosystems that has been studied till now is crude oil ecosystem. Since the first part of twentieth century the presence of life in depth has been experimentally approached. Using microbiological studies, the presence of indigenous organisms to reservoir's extreme conditions including high temperature, high salinity and high pressure has been proved. Several studies have been done on aerobic and anaerobic eubacteria in Iranian crude oil before. But in the present study it was supposed to isolate methanogens as indigenous archaea of Iranian reservoirs, because of the capability of these organisms to produce methane as the main part of urban gas and playing role in the other aspects of oil industry. Fluorescent microscopy, gas chromatography and electron microscopy were the main tools that were applied in this study.

Keywords:

Methane , Crude oil , Methanogen