Abstract
Hydrocarbons, extracted from microbial mats inhabiting some hot springs in central Japan, were analyzed in order to find out possible biomarkers of microbes indicating the terrestrial hydrothermal habitats. Marked are the occurrences of C18 and C19 mono-, di-methyl alkanes and C17-C21 alkenes associated with the mats forming under high temperature (>50℃) conditions. The structure of the branched alkanes were determined by purification with an argentous silica gel column followed by a normal resolution GC-MS analysis. Those hydrocarbon profiles except for alkenes, principally accorded with the previous report by Robinson and Eglinton (1990) for Icelandic hot spring algal mats. Nevertheless, the isomeric composition varied significantly from sample to sample, suggesting a differentiation of the habitant micro-organisms presumably depending on the water temperature.
