Abstract:[Objective] To decrease the swelling of water-sensitive minerals via microorganisms in oil reservoir, one thermophilic bacterial strain was isolated from a high-temperature reservoir in the Zhan 3 block of the Shengli Oilfield. Further experiments were conducted to evaluate the interaction between this isolate and bentonite with smectite as the main mineral.[Results] The isolated strain was thermophilic, facultative anaerobic, Gram-positive, and rod-shaped. It could form spores and was identified as Geobacillus icigianus SL-1 via 16S rRNA sequencing. It could reduce structural Fe(Ⅲ) of smectite under anaerobic conditions. Scanning electron microscopy results showed that smectite was irregularly flaky before the experiments, whereas slab-like particles were observed after the experiments with the presence of SL-1, suggesting the formation of secondary minerals. The energy spectrum analysis showed higher Al/Si ratios were detected in the platy minerals and much stronger peaks for K+ than those in thin smectites. The percentage of smectite in biotic systems decreased significantly (47.7%) in comparison of those in abiotic systems (70.4%) at the end of experiments as indicated by the X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) analysis. Collectively XRD and Energy Dispersive Spectrometer (EDS) results confirmed the transformation of smectite to illite in the biotic systems, which reduce the mineral swelling property by 25.9%. [Significance] These results confirm that pristine bacteria in oil reservoir can play an important role in mineral transformation, subsequently decreasing the swelling properties of clay minerals. Therefore, our results offer a promising way to deal with the water-sensitive issues in oil recovery process.