Surface area control of organic carbon accumulation in continental shelf sediments

The relationship between organic carbon (OC) and grain size found in most continental shelf sediments is here reinterpreted in terms of the surface area of the sediments. Cores from many North American shelf environments show downcore decreases in OC to similar refractory background concentrations if expressed relative to the surface area of the sediments. This consistent concentration is 0.86 mg-OC m−2, which is equivalent in concentration to a monolayer of organic matter coating all mineral surfaces. A more global collection of sediment-water interface samples show that this relationship is even more extensive, with exceptions occurring in areas of very high riverine sediment input, organic pollution, or low-oxygen water columns. Density separations indicate that organic matter is largely adsorbed to mineral grains. The microtopography of surfaces was examined with N2 sorption and most surface area was found to be inside pores of <10 nm width. These data lead to a hypothesis that organic matter is protected by its location inside pores too small to allow functioning of the hydrolytic enzymes necessary for organic matter decay. Such protection would likely work in concert with other protection mechanisms such as humification. This consistent surface area correlation with OC concentration may explain control of spatial and temporal variations in OC burial rates by sedimentation rates; the pore protection hypothesis provides a causal mechanism for this observed control.