DOM is thought to be important for climate regulation because it essentially traps carbon for extended periods. The ocean has about as much carbon in the form of DOM as there is carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. ![]() Phillips is a postdoctoral scholar at UC Santa Barbara, but conducted the research while a graduate student at Caltech with Alex Sessions, professor of geobiology "Our paper helped address a lingering question in carbon sequestration, rejecting a theory of where some old carbon was coming from," says Alexandra Phillips (PhD '21), lead author of a paper on the research that was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) on October 7. The new research suggests that the accumulation of DOM in the deep ocean occurs with negligible input from organic sulfur compounds found in ocean sediments, and thus rejects one leading hypotheses for why it persists for so long. DOM can exist in the deep ocean for hundreds to thousands of years, though no one is sure why it persists for so long. ![]() Because DOM is a major reservoir of carbon, this finding has implications for the sequestration of carbon in the deep ocean (generally defined as the area where light cannot penetrate, a depth of around 200 meters). Using a newly developed technique, researchers have ruled out a potential source of ancient dissolved organic matter (DOM) in the world's oceans.ĭOM is organic material-mostly carbon, but also some nitrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and other elements-that is smaller than approximately 0.7 micrometers in size (tinier than a bacterium) and is dissolved in seawater. Technology Transfer & Corporate Partnerships
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