Dissolved Organic Matter in Marine Environments: A Study of the Origin, Lability and Molecular Composition ...

As one of the Earth’s largest active carbon pools, accounting for around 90% of the organic carbon in the oceans, dissolved organic matter (DOM) plays a fundamental role in carbon storage and other biogeochemical processes. It exists as a highly functionalized and complex mixture of organic compound...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Jaggi, Aprami
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Graduate Studies 2018
Subjects:
Online Access:https://dx.doi.org/10.11575/prism/31770
https://prism.ucalgary.ca/handle/1880/106479
Description
Summary:As one of the Earth’s largest active carbon pools, accounting for around 90% of the organic carbon in the oceans, dissolved organic matter (DOM) plays a fundamental role in carbon storage and other biogeochemical processes. It exists as a highly functionalized and complex mixture of organic compounds which are diverse in their source, reactivity, and history, with about 95% of aquatic DOM mixture remaining un-identified on a molecular level. This thesis uses ultra-high resolution mass spectrometry to characterize the origin, composition, and lability of DOM in the aquatic system. In this thesis, water and sediment samples were collected from sampling sites in the Arctic Ocean, as well as the northern and southern slope of the Gulf of Mexico, to discern the compositional differences in DOM that occur geographically. The DOM of waters sampled across the different ecosystems show a homogenized composition with little variability in their compound class distribution, consisting primarily of NOx, N2Ox, N3Ox, and ...