The Organic Carbon Content of Marine Sediments

However, the range of samples was certainly not representative, and the organic carbon contents are probably biased toward higher values. For example, in the vast abyssal plains and other deep-water regions far away from the continents, an organic carbon content as high as 0.05 % is the exception rather than the rale. 

Generalizations are also difficult to make with respect to variation of organic carbon content with time. For long periods of the geological record the present-day conditions of organic carbon burial can be projected to the past. There were times, however, mostly relatively 

The three case studies show that organic matter preservation and, thus, organic carbon contents strongly depend on the specific local environmental conditions. The extent of remineralization in these three 

although formic acid or methanol may be used as substrates as well. 

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Muller and Suess (1979) demonstrated the influence of sedimentation rate on organic carbon accumulation under oxic open-ocean conditions. They found that the organic carbon content of marine sediments increases by a factor of about two for every tenfold increase in sedimentation rate. The underlying mechanism was believed to be the more rapid removal and protection of organic matter from oxic respiration and benthic digestion at the sediment/water interface by increasingly rapid burial (cf Sect. 12.3.3). Also... 

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