A VIEW OF ORGANIC MATTER PRESERVATION THROUGH THE ISOTOPIC ANALYSIS OF INDIVIDUAL FATTY ACIDS

Organic matter undergoes early diagenesis in the pathway to preservation in a sedimentary sequence. What is preserved is usually ascribed to be either the product of retention of refractory materials or "protected" remnants of the destruction of the more labile matter, or more likely, a combination of both processes. A third mechanism, acquisition of newly synthesized material resulting from microbially mediated reactions, is less frequently invoked. In this study, the sources for the preserved organic matter and the sedimentary history of a Spartina marsh sequence on North Hog Island at the Virginia Coast Reserve Long Term Ecological Research (VCR-LTER) site are reported. Through the utilization of both carbon and nitrogen bulk isotopic compositions and compound specific isotopic analyses (CSIA) as well as the distributions of individual fatty acids, the depositional sequences are assessed. The variations in the cores for bulk organic carbon and nitrogen d ¹³C and d ¹⁵N typically ranged from -17 to -15‰ and +4 to +10‰, respectively. The isotopic compositions generally show a trend of increasing in the heavy isotope downcore. These variations can be attributed to microbial utilization of amino acids resulting in bulk isotopic enrichments in deeper layers. Extensive microbial activity was evidenced at depth with increased amounts of odd-chain and branched-chain fatty acids. Overall, there is a decline with increasing depth in the amount of quantifiable fatty acids. Through the CSIA measurements, the original source of the preserved molecular components was observed to be essentially that of the Spartina, with loss of unsaturation deeper in the sequence. At greater depths, newly synthesized, longer-chain, unsaturated fatty acids were observed, possibly resulting from anaerobic pathways. This newly synthesized organic matter can be a significant portion of the preserved material, especially in coastal locations