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The effect of temperature on organic carbon degradation in marine sediments

The degradation of sedimentary particulate organic carbon (POC) is a key carbon cycle process that fuels the deep subseafloor biosphere. The reactivity of POC is expected to decrease with increasing sediment age, severely restricting the energy available to microorganisms. Conversely, increasing tem...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Malinverno, Alberto, Martinez, Ernesto A.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4671099/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26640172
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep17861
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author Malinverno, Alberto
Martinez, Ernesto A.
author_facet Malinverno, Alberto
Martinez, Ernesto A.
author_sort Malinverno, Alberto
collection PubMed
description The degradation of sedimentary particulate organic carbon (POC) is a key carbon cycle process that fuels the deep subseafloor biosphere. The reactivity of POC is expected to decrease with increasing sediment age, severely restricting the energy available to microorganisms. Conversely, increasing temperatures during burial have been proposed to stimulate POC degradation, possibly supplying significant energy to the deep biosphere. To test the importance of temperature, we assembled POC measurements in two global sets of drill sites where sediments underwent either relatively low or high temperatures during burial, which should have resulted in different rates of POC degradation. For ages 5–10 Ma, the decrease of the average POC content with burial is clearly more pronounced in the sites with high temperature histories. Our results support the hypothesis that temperature is one of the fundamental controls on the rate of POC degradation within deeply buried marine sediments.
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spelling pubmed-46710992015-12-11 The effect of temperature on organic carbon degradation in marine sediments Malinverno, Alberto Martinez, Ernesto A. Sci Rep Article The degradation of sedimentary particulate organic carbon (POC) is a key carbon cycle process that fuels the deep subseafloor biosphere. The reactivity of POC is expected to decrease with increasing sediment age, severely restricting the energy available to microorganisms. Conversely, increasing temperatures during burial have been proposed to stimulate POC degradation, possibly supplying significant energy to the deep biosphere. To test the importance of temperature, we assembled POC measurements in two global sets of drill sites where sediments underwent either relatively low or high temperatures during burial, which should have resulted in different rates of POC degradation. For ages 5–10 Ma, the decrease of the average POC content with burial is clearly more pronounced in the sites with high temperature histories. Our results support the hypothesis that temperature is one of the fundamental controls on the rate of POC degradation within deeply buried marine sediments. Nature Publishing Group 2015-12-07 /pmc/articles/PMC4671099/ /pubmed/26640172 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep17861 Text en Copyright © 2015, Macmillan Publishers Limited http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
spellingShingle Article
Malinverno, Alberto
Martinez, Ernesto A.
The effect of temperature on organic carbon degradation in marine sediments
title The effect of temperature on organic carbon degradation in marine sediments
title_full The effect of temperature on organic carbon degradation in marine sediments
title_fullStr The effect of temperature on organic carbon degradation in marine sediments
title_full_unstemmed The effect of temperature on organic carbon degradation in marine sediments
title_short The effect of temperature on organic carbon degradation in marine sediments
title_sort effect of temperature on organic carbon degradation in marine sediments
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4671099/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26640172
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep17861
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