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Organic Matter Degradation and Preservation

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Encyclopedia of Geochemistry

Part of the book series: Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series ((EESS))

Definition

Organic matter degradation is the disintegration of mainly photosynthetically produced organic matter by microorganisms. It proceeds via multiple enzymatic reactions involving different microorganisms and oxidants as well as a number of intermediate compounds. Depending on the degradation pathway, organic matter is directly oxidized to carbon dioxide, partly oxidized to intermediate compounds or reduced to methane. In the simplest of terms, preservation can be simply defined as the incompleteness of degradation.

Global Importance

Life depends on the continuous recycling of bioactive elements. The resulting global biogeochemical cycles are intimately connected through the biological process of photosynthesis, which fixes energy in carbon bonds and respiration, which breaks the organic bonds and thereby releases energy. On long time scales, organic matter, OM, production generally exceeds respiration and a small fraction of the photosynthetically produced organic carbon...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. BGeosys, Department Geoscience, Environment & Society (DGES), Université Libre de Bruxelles, Bruxelles, Belgium

    Sandra Arndt

  2. Department of Earth Sciences, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Douglas Edward LaRowe

Authors
  1. Sandra Arndt
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  2. Douglas Edward LaRowe
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sandra Arndt .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Earth, Cornell University Department of Earth, Ithaca, New York, USA

    William M. White

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Arndt, S., LaRowe, D.E. (2018). Organic Matter Degradation and Preservation. In: White, W. (eds) Encyclopedia of Geochemistry. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-39193-9_184-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-39193-9_184-1

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-39193-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-39193-9

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