The Early Diagenesis of Organic Matter: Reaction at the Air-Sea Interface

Abstract

The central question of this chapter is to what extent are oceanic or atmospheric organic materials altered as a result of having spent time at or passed through the air-sea interface. Such alterations are not, strictly speaking, diagenetic, because they occur before the organic materials are deposited in sediments, but they are worthy of consideration if they affect what is eventually preserved relative to what was produced in the ocean or supplied from the atmosphere. In addition to products destined for ocean sediments, alterations at the air---sea interface may result in products which leave the ocean for the atmosphere. One can imagine, for example, photochemical processes at the interface which produce volatile products ``lost'' to the atmosphere and residual materials which eventually settle to the seafloor. There may be more evidence for interfacial processes leading to atmospheric products than for processes leading to sedimentary products, but the discussion in this chapter will be confined to the latter.