Abstract

Chemoautotrophic and lithotrophic microorganisms are known to participate in the deposit formation and the rock weathering, but the results of such chemoautotroph-mediated biogeochemical activity and mass transfer strongly differ depending on the ionic composition of the medium, the salt conductivity effects and the Pourbaix diagrams of their medium, as well as on some other physico-chemical parameters which are often not considered as the active external factors for the sake of simplicity. The early biogeochemical considerations underlying the models and kinetic approaches to the analysis of such processes are mostly phenomenological and empirical and do not disclose the essence of the processes occurring at the boundary between the medium processed by the microorganisms and their active surface. Meanwhile, from the standpoint of biochemical physics, and especially biological kinetics, the mechanisms realizing at the interface or in its diffusion viscinity are decisive in such processes as the reagent input into the micro reactor-like biological compartments and aggregation upon biomineralization, which are usually biomembrane-mediated. Specificity of chemoautotrophic microorganisms to the chemically different media indicates the difference in their membrane properties within the natural mineral medium.

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