The majority of life on Earth—notably, microbial life—occurs in places that do not receive
sunlight, with the habitats of the oceans being the largest of these reservoirs. Sunlight …

Measurements of dissolved methane in the ocean have been available for only about 50
years. Methane measurements in sediments, where concentrations are millimolar, were first …

Methane is the most abundant organic chemical in Earth's atmosphere, and its concentration
is increasing with time, as a variety of independent measurements have shown …

For more than a decade I have taught a graduate-level course in marine sediment
geochemistry that covers many of the topics discussed in this book. The goal now is to …

We determined the geochemical characteristics of sediments and measured rates of the
anaerobic oxidation of methane (AOM) and sulfate reduction (SR) in samples collected near …

Reviews of the sulfur cycle from a biogeochemical or microbiological perspective have
recently been presented, eg by Amend et al.(2004) and Canfield et al.(2005). The latter …

This paper addresses three related questions:(1) What factors control the efficiency of
carbon burial in sediments?(2) Are rates of anaerobic organic matter degradation …

Compilations have been made of sulfate reduction rates and oxic respiration rates over the
entire range of marine sedimentation rates, and sedimentary environments, including …

The above statement, although meant to be tongue in cheek, contains an essential truism:
all work with inhibitors is inherently suspect. This fact has been known by biochemists for …

Porewater concentrations of sulfate, methane, and other relevant constituents were
determined on four sediment cores from the high productivity upwelling area off Namibia …