Microbial diversity analysis of oil sands collected from active mining sites and potential Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage sites in Fort McMurray, AB using next-generation 16S pyrosequencing

One of the causes of the world’s energy crisis is the realization that we do not yet have a viable alternative for fossil fuels. Although there are a number of renewable energies, present-day society remains heavily dependent on fossil fuels. One of the forms of fossil fuels is oil sands. The current technology for oil sands operations uses a large amount of water and energy; it also leads to a significant increase in carbon dioxide emissions and creates major ecological challenges. Under these pressures, development of more environmental and economical friendly oil sands extraction and processing are needed. Oil sands contain heavily biodegraded hydrocarbon. Anaerobic microbial consortia in which the oil is attacked by Bacteria and Archaea are responsible for the slow conversion of oil into methane and carbon dioxide. Because these microbes prefer the low-molecular-weight hydrocarbons, biodegradation yields an increasingly heavy oil, as such bitumen (the heaviest form of oil) can be considered an end-point of this anaerobic degradation. Yet, oil sands harbor diverse microbial communities. The goal of this study is to determine the indigenous microbial communities found in Alberta oil sands at various depths. A survey of the populations was carried out by sequencing amplified 16S ribosomal DNA amplicons using the pyrosequencing technique.