Organic matter in marine sediments

The burial rate of organic matter in marine sediments is a factor of 2 smaller (0.15 to 0.19PgC/y) than the known terrestrial input. This requires that greater than half of the terrestrial organic matter be remineralized prior to burial. Marine chemists have been unable to establish how and where in the ocean this remineralization occurs. Similarly... 

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The depositional history of Devonian black shales in the Appalachian, Illinois, and Michigan Basins is still a subject of academic argument it is complicated by the fact that organic matter in marine sediments can be preserved in a number of depositional environments which share a common and necessary requirement of little or no oxygen (11). 

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