[1] The phosphorus budget of the prehuman modern ocean is constrained applying the most recent estimates of the natural riverine, eolian, and ice‐rafted input fluxes; the phosphorus burial in marine sediments; and the hydrothermal removal of dissolved phosphate from the deep ocean. This review of current flux estimates indicates that the phosphorus budget of the ocean is unbalanced since the ac...

Nitrate peaks are found in pore-water profiles in marine sediments at depths considerably below the conventional zone of oxic nitrification. These have been interpreted to represent nonsteady-state effects produced by the activity of nitrifying bacteria, and suggest that nitrification occurs throughout the anoxic sediment region. In this study, ΣNO3 peaks and molecular analysis of DNA and RNA e...

Introduction: Marine actinomycetes have a great potential to produce unique bioactive compounds due to their special adaptation in the harsh ocean environment. The current study aimed to isolate anti-cancer compounds producing actinomycetes from sediments of Harra forests of the Persian Gulf and investigate their potential as anti-breast cancer metabolites. Methods: In the current study, 40 se...

Patterns of change in the structure of bacterial communities monitored by ribosomal intergenic spacer analysis (RISA) in oil contaminated sediments inhabited or not by the marine polychaete Nereis diversicolor were studied during 45 days under laboratory conditions. Results supported by principal component analysis showed a marked response of the bacterial communities to the oil contamination a...

The burial of organic matter (OM) in marine sediments represents the major link between “active” surface pools of carbon in the oceans, atmosphere, on land, and in marine sediment, and carbon pools that cycle on much longer, geologic time scales (i.e., carbon in sedimentary rock, coal, and petroleum deposits). It also plays some role in controlling atmospheric CO2 and O2 on these long time scal...

Microbial conversion behavior was investigated with several standard arsenicals. As typical origin of marine micro-organisms, sediments, macro-algae, mollusk intestine and suspended substances were used. The degradation of arsenobetaine was observed with every origin, suggesting the ubiquitous occurrence of arsenobetaine-decomposing microorganisms in marine environment. Especially, the microorg...

Molar organic carbon to total nitrogen to organic phosphorus (OC:TN:OP) ratios are used in tandem with carbon isotopic values to constrain sources of organic matter (OM) to marine sediments in a tropical coastal embayment. Analysis of end-members specific to the study site indicates that the bulk OM pool cannot be modeled as a simple mixture of two end-members (terrestrial vs. marine OM), but r...

Proteinaceous material usually accounts for much of the total nitrogen and organic carbon in marine sediments. Thus, decomposition of protein is frequently investigated as a measure of labile organic matter turnover. The fraction of protein that escapes remineralization to CO2 undergoes transformations that may reflect pathways of preservation in sedimentary environments. We analyzed the molecu...

[1] ‘‘Iron fertilization’’ has been previously recognized as a potential mechanism for enhanced organic matter burial in marine sediments. However, the singular view of iron as a control on primary production overlooks its role in sedimentary diagenesis, a factor that must be evaluated when considering organic matter accumulation. This study examines the role of iron as a buffer of pore water s...

We analyze the density distribution of marine sediments using density samples taken from 716 drill sites of the Deep Sea Drilling Project (DSDP). The samples taken within the upper stratigraphic layer exhibit a prevailing trend of the decreasing density with the increasing ocean depth (at a rate of -0.05 g/cm(3) per 1 km). Our results confirm findings of published studies that the density nonli...