Life on our planet is constrained within bounds set by the transport and transformations of the elements. Carbon cycling in particular plays a central role in Biogeochemistry on a range of scales in time and space. My research addresses what happens after deposition of organic matter in sediment, and as it turns out, what happens is … a lot! Processes such as diagenesis, chemical decomposition and the existence of metabolically active microorganisms at the deepest and most extreme extent of our exploration lead us to wonder why and how organic matter is preserved for millions of years in rocks. To address this, my research test the limits of what it means to be refractory, labile or biologically available, by exploring the degradation, dissolution and utilization of ancient organic matter in soils, aquatic systems and the deep subsurface.
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Millenial-aged organic carbon subsidies to a modern river food web (with J. J. Cole, P. Raymond, J. E. Bauer, and N. Caraco), Ecology (2010)
Recent studies indicate that highly aged material is a major component of organic matter transported...
Impact of Hurricane Katrina (2005) on shelf organic carbon burial and deltaic evolution (with Mead A. Allison, Timothy M. Dellapenna, Elizabeth S. Gordon, and Siddhartha Mitra), Geophysical Research Letters (2010)
Sediment cores from the continental shelf adjacent to the Mississippi River delta immediately after the...
Linking lithology and land use to sources of dissolved and particulate organic matter in headwaters of a temperate, passive-margin river system (with B. E. Longwortha, P. A. Raymond, and J. E. Bauerc), Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta (2007)
A number of rivers have been found to transport highly aged organic matter [OM]; however,...
Salinity Constraints on Subsurface Archaeal Diversity and Methanogenesis in Sedimentary Rock Rich in Organic Matter (with P. Waldron, A. M. Martini, and K. Nüsslein), Applied and Environmental Microbiology (2007)
The diversity of microorganisms active within sedimentary rocks provides important controls on the geochemistry of...
A solid state 13C NMR study of kerogen degradation during black shale weathering (with R. J. Smernik, T. I. Eglinton, and J. M. Oades), Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta (2001)
Solid state 13C nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy is used to examine kerogen composition in...