A global survey of long-term organic carbon decomposition in marine sediments: constraints to methanogenesis, gas hydrate formation, and C cycle budget

Lead PI: Dr. Alberto Malinverno

Unit Affiliation: Marine and Polar Geophysics, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO)

July 2013 - June 2016
Inactive
Global ; Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO)
Project Type: Research

DESCRIPTION: The project aims to improve quantification of long-term particulate organic carbon (POC) decomposition in marine sediments. The PI will conduct a global survey of POC data collected by DSDP, ODP, and IODP to test models relating sediment age and temperature to POC decomposition rates, which will be averaged separately for different environments. Results will provide constraints on marine methanogenesis and the carbon cycle budget. The study aims to advance our understanding of the long-term organic carbon cycle, which plays a key role in climate change over geologic time scales. Two undergraduate students will be involved in the research, one of which will be recruited from a Consortium for Ocean Leadership program that targets underrepresented minorities.

SPONSOR:

National Science Foundation (NSF)

ORIGINATING SPONSOR:

National Science Foundation

FUNDED AMOUNT:

$150,309

RESEARCH TEAM:

Ernesto A. Martinez

EXTERNAL COLLABORATORS:

University of California Berkeley

WEBSITE:

https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1259274&HistoricalAwards=false

PUBLICATIONS:

Malinverno, A., & Martinez, E. A. (2015). The effect of temperature on organic carbon degradation in marine sediments. Sci. Rep., 5, 17861, doi:17810.11038/srep17861.

Malinverno, A., & Martinez, E. A. (2015). Organic carbon, in situ temperature, age data, and age models in scientific ocean drilling holes (Deep Sea Drilling Project, Ocean Drilling Program, and Integrated Ocean Drilling Program). Integrated Earth Data Applications (IEDA), doi:10.1594/IEDA/100537.

KEYWORDS

marine sediments organic matter decomposition geologic carbon cycle particulate organic carbon methanogenesis