Cascadia margin sediment metagenome. marine sediment metagenome

Deep-sea sediments contain one of the largest pools of organic carbon and represent one of the largest habitats for microbial life. The Hydrate Ridge at the Cascadia margin is a cold methane seep in the deep ocean that contains hydrate reservoirs, a steady low-temperature profile and steep geochemical gradients in the sediments. Despite the importance of bacteria in nutrient cycling, it has been estimated that only ~0.1% of deep-sea inhabiting microbes have been cultivated and most of our knowledge is based on single-gene studies. To address this gap, we performed metagenomic sequencing of Cascadia Margin sediment samples and further reconstructed microbial genomes from the generated sequencing data. Samples were made available by the Gulf Coast Repository (GCR) and were collected on IODP leg 204 at site 1244 in July 14, 2002.