Global patterns of reactivity and sources of organic matter in marine sediments: A coupled model and lipid biomarker approach

F. S. Freitas, P. A. Pika, J. Holtvoeth, S. Arndt, R. D. Pancost

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

Understanding the mechanisms dictating organic matter (OM) burial in marine sediments at a global scale is crucial for accurate assessments of carbon and nutrient cycling. The lack of a mechanistic framework that allows us to interrogate the main drivers behind OM degradation and preservation in different geographical and time scales limits our ability to produce robust forecasts of future perturbations on the global carbon cycle and Earth climate. Such a framework would help improve model parameterisation, and thus benefit both data-poor areas and time scales. Arndt et al. (2013) have demonstrated the overall lack of global-scale clear relationships between OM burial patterns and single characteristics of depositional environments. That represents a huge limitation in improving model parameterisation for a better representation of processes controlling OM cycling in marine sediments (Hülse et al., 2018). Therefore, there is a clear need to improve our understanding of OM burial in a broad sense, considering various aspects from OM sources, through transport, to final deposition. We use a multidisciplinary approach, in which we investigate OM sources through lipid biomarker compositions and compare those to quantitatively determined OM reactivity (k) by means of Reaction-Transport modelling (RTM). We develop our coupled model-lipid biomarker approach for several depositional environments, comprising coastal, marginal, and deep-sea sites, within a range of depositional rates and sediment redox conditions. Our aim is to establish a global-scale quantitative link between OM reactivity (k) and OM sources
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publication29th International Meeting on Organic Geochemistry, IMOG 2019
PublisherEuropean Association of Geoscientists and Engineers, EAGE
Pages1-2
ISBN (Electronic)9789462823044
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 30 Sept 2019
Externally publishedYes
Event29th International Meeting on Organic Geochemistry, IMOG 2019 - Gothenburg, Sweden
Duration: 1 Sept 20196 Sept 2019

Publication series

Name29th International Meeting on Organic Geochemistry, IMOG 2019

Conference

Conference29th International Meeting on Organic Geochemistry, IMOG 2019
Country/TerritorySweden
CityGothenburg
Period1/09/196/09/19

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