Guano decomposition

Most weathering processes, to be sure, take place in an environment where aerobic bacteria are active, unless there are considerable quantities of nitrogenous organic matter present. Anaerobic conditions, which usually also imply pH values close to (or less than) 7, are encountered in certain marine muds, guano deposits, and elsewhere. The anaerobe, Clostridium acidiurici (Liebert), which is known to occur in soils, produces ammonia, carbon dioxide and acetic acid from uric acid, guanine and xanthine (Baker and Beck, 1942), while Streptococcus allantoicus forms — in addition to ammonia and carbon dioxide — urea, oxamic acid, etc. Oxalic acid is a common product in the decomposition of guano. 

Butyric aoid-0,H,00,9H —88—has been found in the milk, per-sphution, muscular fluid, the juices of the spleen and of other glands, the urine, contents of the stomach and large intestine, hvces, and guano in certain fniits, in yeast, in the products of decomposition of many vegetable substances and in natural waters in fresh butter in small quantity, more abundnntlr in that which is rancid. 

Trimethylamine—59—is formed by the action of methyl iodide upon NH., and as a product of decomposition of many organic substances, it being one of the pi otlucts of the action of potash on many vegetable substances, alkaloids, etc. It also occui s naturally in cod-liver oil, ergot chenopodium, yeast, guano, human urine, the blood of the calf, and many flowers. 

Methane accumulates in coal seams as fire damp formed by anaerobic bacterial decomposition of organic material such as cellulose, and similarly is generated as marsh gas in swamps and water-logged vicinities. It is also liberated by bacterial decomposition of animal and bird excrement (e.g, cow manure and bat guano) and tissue and can be detected ca. in marine surface waters, presumably mainly formed from... 

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