Please allow us to inform you that an accepted paper in Geomicrobiology Journal was open
on March 4, 2014.

The title of this paper is as follow:

Ueno et al. (2014)
Structural Alteration of Humic Acids by Pseudomonas spp. from Deep Terrestrial Subsurface Diatomite Formations in Northernmost Japan.

It is available in the following URL. Do not miss it !
http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/3kGeRHj8dHxEurvKkHYA/full

Please note that only the first 50 colleagues who have accessed to the above-mentioned URL have the privilege to download the free-access files on a first-come-first served basis.

This paper showed several results on Pseudomonas stutzeri strain HSI-9 obtained from the deep subsurface environment in Horonobe, Hokkaido, Japan.

It was found that
(1) the strain HSI-9 degrades and utilizes one part of humic acids under aerobic condition, and
(2) the molecular structure of humic acids is transformed by the addition of some molecules derived from bacterial cells (strain HSI-9).

To the best of our knowledge, it is the first report demonstrating that a subsurface bacterial isolate belonging to the genus Pseudomonas transforms the molecular structure of humic acids.

The subsurface environment is likely to be exposed to oxygen when the construction of underground facilities is performed. As a result of it, it is thought that aerobic bacteria come to dominate and alter the molecular structure of humic acids in the subsurface environment.