ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2021
An ecophysiological explanation for manganese enrichment in rock varnish.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers.
What it found
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Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed, 43 citations in OpenAlex.
- Biological contributions to manganese oxides in rock varnish at Murujuga (Western Australia).Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Sulfide-oxidizing potential and hypersalinity tolerance strategies in salt-crust covered coastal microbial mats.The ISME journal · 2026Article
- Article
- Metal-induced biofilm formation by radiation resistant bacteria Deinococcus radiodurans and Deinococcus indicus.Extremophiles : life under extreme conditions · 2025Article
- An astrobiological perspective on microbial biofilms: their importance for habitability and production of detectable and lasting biosignatures.Applied and environmental microbiology · 2025Review
- Article
- The ternary complex of MnProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- The Challenges and Opportunities of High-Spin Mn(II) EPR and ENDOR.Applied magnetic resonance · 2024Article
- Bridging the gap with bacterial art.FEMS microbiology letters · 2023Article
- Effects of Desiccation and Freezing on Microbial Ionizing Radiation Survivability: Considerations for Mars Sample Return.Astrobiology · 2022Article
- From manganese oxidation to water oxidation: assembly and evolution of the water-splitting complex in photosystem II.Photosynthesis research · 2022Review
- Article
- Analysis of Rock Varnish from the Mojave Desert by Handheld Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy.Molecules (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Article
- Shining light on photosynthetic microbes and manganese-enriched rock varnish.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
14 authors at 4 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Desert varnish is a dark rock coating that forms in arid environments worldwide. It is highly and selectively enriched in manganese, the mechanism for which has been a long-standing geological mystery. We collected varnish samples from diverse sites across the western United States, examined them in petrographic thin section using microscale chemical imaging techniques, and investigated the associated microbial communities using 16S amplicon and shotgun metagenomic DNA sequencing. Our analyses described a material governed by sunlight, water, and manganese redox cycling that hosts an unusually aerobic microbial ecosystem characterized by a remarkable abundance of photosynthetic Cyanobacteria in the genus
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Registered trials
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