Wichita Mountains Byway – View of Mount Zodletone from the southwest
Map of the elevation displacements in the area of
Wichita Mountains (in the south) / Anadarko Basin
Zodletone Mountain rises approximately 500 meters (or 1640 feet) above sea level[3] and 75 meters (or 229 feet) above the surrounding terrain.[5][1][A 1] At its base, the mountain is approximately 1.9 kilometers (or 1.18 miles) wide.[A 2] Located in the
Anadarko Basin,[6] the land surrounding Zodletone Mountain is predominantly flat.[A 3] As a result, the mountain is a prominent feature in the
landscape. It is nearly entirely encircled by
grassland[7] and several
lakes are situated in the region.[4][A 4] Zodletone Mountain is the northernmost link of the Slick Hills Range.[5] The highest point in the area is Bally Mountain, which stands at 1866.8 feet above sea level and is located 2.73 miles south of Mount Zodletone.[A 5] The population density of Zodletone Mountain is very low, with only about 2 inhabitants per square kilometer (247.105 acres).[8][9] The
ZIP Code delivery area is OK 73062. The nearest major city,
Carnegie, is located 8.88 miles northeast of Zodletone Mountain.[9]
Climate
The
climate in this region is humid and
subtropical,[10][11] with an average temperature of 18°C/64.4°F. The hottest month is July, with 32°C/89.6°F average, while the coldest is January, with an average temperature of 2°C/35.6°F.[12] The average annual rainfall is 783 millimeters/30.826 inches, with the wettest month being April, with 104 millimeters/4.094 inches of rain, and the driest being January, with only 25 millimeters/0.984-inch.[13]
Directions
Follow Oklahoma 58 south of Carnegie for 6.83 miles. Then, turn west on a dirt road for 2.98 miles and continue south for about half a mile until you reach a white two-story farmhouse to obtain a visitor's permit (as of 1988).[5]
Zodletone Spring
Located on the northern slope of Mount Zodletone, the Zodletone Spring is an
artesian spring that features a
National Science Foundation (NSF) microbial observatory.[6][2][14] First described by Havens in 1983,[6] the spring is a
sulfide-rich and strictly
anaerobichydrocarbon seep that operates at low temperatures.[2] The spring discharges approximately 2.11 gallons per minute over a distance of about 22 yards,[15] where the water flows north over Stinking Creek[16][17] into nearby Saddle Mountain Creek.[18][4] The spring is a closed area of approximately 1 square meter filled with
biomass and soft sediments to a depth of at least 6 inches.[17] The spring water has a
sulfide content of 8–10 mmol/L[19][20] and contains 1.0–1.5
mmol of
zero valent sulfur.[17] The
salinity, measured by the concentration of
sodium chloride, is around 0.7–1.0%,[15] which is significantly less than
seawater (approximately 3.5%). These measurements, in the mats formed by the microbes, increase to 2–5%, and in the soil they can reach up to 25–30% at a depth of 2 in and 12 in, respectively.[15] The
hydrocarbons detected in high concentrations are short-chain
alkanes, such as
methane,
ethane, and
propane.[15]
A list of the minerals encountered there can be found at
mindat.org.[11] This environment shares many similarities with the conditions that existed on Earth almost
two billion years ago when there was no
oxygen in the
atmosphere, and
methane was abundant. Frequent
sulfurreactions were likely to have occurred. Therefore, the spring and spring stream
ecosystem provides an opportunity to study the
biology and geochemistry of early Earth.[2][23] Therefore, the investigations focus on the role of microorganisms, particularly bacteria and
archaea, in hydrocarbon (petroleum) and
sulfur metabolism, as well as micro-eukaryotes[2] (
eukaryotic microbes such as
protists and
microfungi).
Among the
Archaea,
Crenarchaeota[15] were found in addition to an unexpected occurrence of
Halobacteria (
Euryarchaeota) in several places in spring, despite the fact that the water
salinity is too low for them[2][20] (although not in the mats and
soil, as seen above). The following were identified:[2]
Ca. Heimdallarchaeota archaeon isolate Zod_Metabat.460.[42]
Asgard archaea, particularly the
Heimdall archaea, are considered potential candidates for illustrating the origin in the
evolution of complex cellular organisms, or
eukaryotes, in a process known as
eukaryogenesis.
The majority of the fungal sequences observed belong to
ascomyceteyeasts of the
Saccharomycetales order or are closely related to
basidiomycete yeasts from the
Tremellales order. In addition, they found sequences from one of the
Ustilaginomycetes (fire fungi) and a new group of fungi provisionally designated as LKM (also known as Zeuk1), named after the strain LKM11 from
Lac Pavin (France).[43][19][16]
Viruses
As of mid-January 2023, research on the
Viruses in the Zodletone Spring ecosystem is still limited. However, the RNA sequence EMS013, which possibly belongs to the genus Cystovirus, along with two other examples, suggest the presence of
RNAbacteriophages.[44] The presence of protists from the genus
’’Cafeteria’’ suggests the possibility of the presence of accompanying viruses, such as the
DNA giant virus
Cafeteria roenbergensis virus’’ (CroV).
Elshahed, Mostafa S.; Senko, John M.; Najar, Fares Z.; Kenton, Stephen M.; Roe, Bruce A.; Dewers, Thomas A.; Spear, John R.; Krumholz, Lee R. (September 2003). "Bacterial Diversity and Sulfur Cycling in a Mesophilic Sulfide-Rich Spring". Applied and Environmental Microbiology. 69 (9): 5609–5621.
doi:10.1128/AEM.69.9.5609-5621.2003.[6]
Elshahed, Mostafa S.; Youssef, Noha H.; Luo, Qingwei; Najar, Fares Z.; Roe, Bruce A.; Sisk, Tracy M.; Bühring, Solveig I.; Hinrichs, Kai-Uwe; Krumholz, Lee R. (August 2007). "Phylogenetic and Metabolic Diversity of Planctomycetes from Anaerobic, Sulfide- and Sulfur-Rich Zodletone Spring, Oklahoma". Applied and Environmental Microbiology. 73 (15): 4707–4716.
doi:10.1128/AEM.00591-07.[25]
Hahn, C. Ryan; Farag, Ibrahim F.; Murphy, Chelsea L.; Podar, Mircea; Elshahed, Mostafa S.; Youssef, Noha H. (2022-04-26). Sousa, Filipa L.; Schleper, Christa M. (eds.). "Microbial Diversity and Sulfur Cycling in an Early Earth Analogue: From Ancient Novelty to Modern Commonality". mBio. 13 (2).
doi:10.1128/mbio.00016-22.[23]
Krishnamurthy, Siddharth R.; Janowski, Andrew B.; Zhao, Guoyan; Barouch, Dan; Wang, David (24 March 2016). "Hyperexpansion of RNA Bacteriophage Diversity". PLOS Biology. 14 (3): e1002409.
doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1002409.[44]
Luo, Qingwei; Krumholz, Lee R.; Najar, Fares Z.; Peacock, Aaron D.; Roe, Bruce A.; White, David C.; Elshahed, Mostafa S. (October 2005). "Diversity of the Microeukaryotic Community in Sulfide-Rich Zodletone Spring (Oklahoma)". Applied and Environmental Microbiology. 71 (10): 6175–6184.
doi:10.1128/AEM.71.10.6175-6184.2005.
ISSN 0099-2240.[16]
Lynch, Erin A.; Langille, Morgan G. I.; Darling, Aaron; Wilbanks, Elizabeth G.; Haltiner, Caitlin; Shao, Katie S. Y.; Starr, Michael O.; Teiling, Clotilde; Harkins, Timothy T.; Edwards, Robert A.; Eisen, Jonathan A.; Facciotti, Marc T. (2012-07-24). "Sequencing of Seven Haloarchaeal Genomes Reveals Patterns of Genomic Flux". PLOS ONE. 7 (7): e41389.
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0041389.
ISSN 1932-6203.[35]
Savage, Kristen N.; Krumholz, Lee R.; Gieg, Lisa M.; Parisi, Victoria A.; Suflita, Joseph M.; Allen, Jon; Philp, R. Paul; Elshahed, Mostafa S. (2010-03-19). "Biodegradation of low-molecular-weight alkanes under mesophilic, sulfate-reducing conditions: metabolic intermediates and community patterns: n-Propane and n-pentane degradation by sulfate reducers". FEMS Microbiology Ecology. 72 (3): 485–495.
doi:10.1111/j.1574-6941.2010.00866.x.[18]
Spain, Anne M.; Elshahed, Mostafa S.; Najar, Fares Z.; Krumholz, Lee R. (2015-09-22). "Metatranscriptomic analysis of a high-sulfide aquatic spring reveals insights into sulfur cycling and unexpected aerobic metabolism". PeerJ. 3: e1259.
doi:10.7717/peerj.1259.
ISSN 2167-8359.[22]
Yadav, Archana; Hahn, C. Ryan; S. Elshahed, Mostafa; H. Youssefa, Noha (1 July 2021). "Five Metagenome-Assembled Genomes of the Rare Phylum CSSED10-310 from Zodletone Spring (Oklahoma, USA)". Microbiology Resource Announcement. 10 (26).[31]
Notes
^Topographic determination from
DEM 3" data from Viewfinder Panoramas.
^The largest extension of the contour around the topographical highlighting.
^Determined from the intersection of all elevation data(
DEM 3") of Viewfinder panoramas within a 10-kilometer radius.
^According to
GeoNames within a radius of 20 kilometers, compared to the average density of lakes on Earth.
^The point that is highest above the local horizon according to the elevation data from
GeoNames.
Suzanne Coveley, Mostafa S. Elshahed, Noha H. Youssef: Response of the rare biosphere to environmental stressors in a highly diverse ecosystem (Zodletone spring, OK, USA). In: PeerJ, Band 3, e1182, 20. August 2015;
doi:10.7717/peerj.1182.