Sedimentary Organic Matter

A sound understanding of the global carbon cycle requires an appreciation of the various physico-chemical and biological processes that determine the production, distribution, deposition and diagenesis of organic matter in the natural environment. This book is a comprehensive inter-disciplinary synthesis of this information, coupled with an "organic facies" approach based on data from both microscopy and bulk organic geochemistry. The emphasis is mainly on marine environments, with information from Recent, Quaternary and Ancient sediments used to establish the key controls on the distribution, preservation and accumulation of both the total sedimentary organic matter and a wide range of more specific terrestrial and algal particulate components. The primary applications are geological (reconstruction of ancient depositional environments and the assessment of hydrocarbon potential), but oceanographers, limnologists and ecologists should also find it to be relevant to their work. This book should be of interest to organic geochemists, palynologists, marine geologists, sedimentologists, petroleum geologists, and oceanographers.