Carbon isotope composition of organic compounds produced by abiotic synthesis under hydrothermal conditions
Date
2006-01-12Metadata
Show full item recordCitable URI
https://hdl.handle.net/1912/878As published
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2006.01.027Abstract
Although it is widely believed that production of organic compounds by Fischer-Tropsch synthesis and related processes occurs in many geologic environments, unambiguous identification of compounds with an abiotic origin in natural samples has been hampered by a lack of means to discriminate between abiotic compounds and organic matter from biological sources. While isotopic compositions might provide a means to discriminate between biologic and non-biologic sources of organic matter, there are few data presently available to constrain the isotopic composition of compounds produced by abiotic processes in geologic systems. Here, we report results of laboratory experiments conducted to evaluate the isotopic composition of organic compounds synthesized abiotically under hydrothermal conditions. We find the organic products are depleted in 13C to a degree typically ascribed to biological processes, indicating that carbon isotopic composition may not be a particularly effective diagnostic means to differentiate between biologic and non-biologic sources. Furthermore, our results suggest that the isotopic compositions of reduced carbon compounds found in many ancient rocks that have heretofore been attributed to biological sources could be consistent with an abiotic origin in a hydrothermal setting.
Description
Author Posting. © Elsevier B.V., 2006. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Elsevier B.V. for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters 243 (2006): 74-84, doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2006.01.027.
Collections
Suggested Citation
Preprint: McCollom, Thomas M., Seewald, Jeffrey S., "Carbon isotope composition of organic compounds produced by abiotic synthesis under hydrothermal conditions", 2006-01-12, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2006.01.027, https://hdl.handle.net/1912/878Related items
Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.
-
Concentrations and stable isotope abundances of particulate organic carbon (POC) and particulate organic nitrogen (PON) from Niskin bottle samples taken on R/V Melville cruise MV1008 in the Costa Rica Dome in 2010 (CRD FLUZiE project)
Landry, Michael R. (Biological and Chemical Oceanography Data Management Office (BCO-DMO). Contact: bco-dmo-data@whoi.edu, 2019-12-30)Concentrations and stable isotope abundances of particulate organic carbon (POC) and particulate organic nitrogen (PON). Samples were collected on the MV1008 cruise in the Costa Rica Dome (CRD) region of the Eastern Tropical ... -
Allochthonous sources and dynamic cycling of ocean dissolved organic carbon revealed by carbon isotopes
Zigah, Prosper; McNichol, Ann P.; Xu, Li; Johnson, Carl G.; Santinelli, Chiara; Karl, David M.; Repeta, Daniel J. (John Wiley & Sons, 2017-03-07)We present concentration and isotopic profiles of total, size, and polarity fractionated dissolved organic carbon (DOC) from Station ALOHA (A Long-term Oligotrophic Habitat Assessment), an oligotrophic site in the North ... -
Sources and accumulation of organic carbon in the Pearl River Estuary surface sediment as indicated by elemental, stable carbon isotopic, and carbohydrate compositions
He, B.; Dai, Minhan; Huang, W.; Liu, Q.; Chen, H.; Xu, Li (Copernicus Publications on behalf of the European Geosciences Union, 2010-10-28)Organic matter in surface sediments from the upper reach of the Pearl River Estuary and Lingdingyang Bay, as well as the adjacent northern South China Sea shelf was characterized using a variety of techniques, including ...