Research in the Biogeochemistry Lab at UMass addresses fundamental unanswered questions of carbon cycling important over large scales of time and space. On the broadest level, these questions include:

• What controls the carbon dioxide and oxygen content of our atmosphere? How has the composition of the atmosphere varied over geologic time? What relations exist between evolution of the atmosphere and biosphere?
• How rapidly and by what mechanisms is organic matter remineralized in earth surface environments? What factors control preservation and limit degradation of organic matter in sediments and rocks?
• What forms and compositions of organic matter are accessible to microorganisms? What are the limits to microbial growth and metabolism in sedimentary environments

To address these questions, the Lab employs tools and techniques from
- isotope geochemistry
- molecular organic geochemistry
- environmental microbiology, and
- molecular biology.

Research Support generously provided by:

and a growing number of private companies from the natural gas industry

Active Research Projects:

1. Isotopic and molecular biological signatures of gas (CH4, CO2) generation in ancient sedimentary rocks from active subsurface microbial communities. Poster from 2004 GSA meeting available as PDF.

• research funded by NSF Biogeosciences program EAR-0433766, PI in collaboration with A.M. Martini (Amherst College) and K. Nüsslein (UMass Microbiology), and by contributors from the gas industry
• field sites in Antrim Shale (northern Michigan), Forest City Basin (Kansas-Missouri border), and New Albany Shale (Ohio-Indiana-Kentucky), in actively-produced natural gas fields
• distribution and origin of microorganisms in deep subsurface sedimentary environments
• characterization of dissolved and solid phase organic matter in deep sedimentary basins
• 16S rDNA-based molecular phylogeny of shale-hosted subsurface microorganisms
  processing and overprinting of molecular marker signatures in organic carbon-rich sedimentary rocks
• isotopic and geochemical fingerprints of microbial methane generation in sedimentary basins
• mechanisms, limitations and efficiency of anaerobic hydrocarbon degradation and methane generation in sedimentary rocks

2. Isotopic and molecular diagnostics of ancient sedimentary rocks as sources of aged organic matter in modern river systems

• research funded by NSF Integrated Carbon Cycle Research program EAR-0403960, co-PI in collaboration with J. Bauer (VIMS), J. Cole (IES), N. Caraco (IES), P. Raymond (Yale-FES); graduate student support from the Hudson River Foundation
• concentration and elemental analysis (C,H,N,S,O) of particulate and dissolved organic matter in major rivers and headwater streams of east coast USA
• isotopic analysis (13C, 14C) of DOM and POM
• characterization of OM sources to watersheds (concentration, isotopic analysis, elemental analysis, pyrolysis-gc, NMR, ESI-MS) from rocks, soils and wetlands
• isotopic analysis of molecular markers tracing export from rocks/soils, and utilization by aquatic microbiota
• development of GIS to generate sampling/data analysis matrix based on lithology, relief and land use types

3. Offshore mobilization of aged organic matter in response to Hurricane Katrina

• research funded by NSF SGER grant EAR-0555047. UMass Biogeochemistry Lab post-doc Elizabeth Gordon is Co-PI on this grant
• goal of this pilot project is to investigate coastal erosion associated with passage of the Hurricane, specifically to evaluate delivery of aged floodplain organic matter to offshore sediments
• Liz Gordon participated on a research cruise on the R.V. Longhorn, together with colleagues Meade Allison and Timothy Dellapena to the Mississippi Delta to collect sediment cores reflecting the storm deposit. Lucky Liz!
  • the cruise was actually delayed for a few days due to Hurricane Rita!
• the microbial community in the cores is being examined using phospholipid fatty acids abundance and isotopic composition. Organic matter sources are being investigated using lipid and lignin biomarkers.

 

Pending Research Projects:

1. Storage, Transformation and Release of Carbon from Coastal Wetlands under Rising Sea Level. This project will investigate changes in the distribution, composition and abundance of carbon pools (sedimentary, POC and DOC) along and adjacent to coastal wetlands in response to subsidence and coastal erosion associated with rising sea level.

2. Millennial Scale Arctic Climate Change for the last 3.6 My: Scientific Drilling at Lake El'gygytgyn, NE Russia. This project will investigate lipid biomarkers signatures of organic carbon sources to lake sediments over the Neogene, and describe the paleoenvironmental changes reflected in biomarker abundance and isotopic composition.

3. DOE/Rawhide Energy Resources. “BioGeoGas: A coalbed methane stimulation approach”. $70,000, co-PI. This project will explore the generation of microbial methane in coalbeds from NE Wyoming, and develop improved understanding of limits, controls and avenues of stimulation of the rate of subsurface microbial methane production.

Publications

2005

Martini, A.M., Nüsslein, K., and Petsch, S.T. (2005) Enhancing microbial gas from unconventional reservoirs: Geochemical and microbiological characterization of methane-rich fractured black shales. Gas Technology Institute – Research Partnership to Secure Energy for America . Report GRI-05/0023 . R. Siegfried, ed. 42 p.

Martini, A.M., Nüsslein, K., Petsch, S.T. (2005) Enhancing Microbial Gas From Unconventional Reservoirs: Geochemical And Microbiological Characterization Of Methane-Rich Fractured Black Shales. Spring 2005 Gas Tips - Newsletter of the Gas Technology Institute, (invited manuscript). p. 3-7.

Petsch, S.T. , Edwards, K.J., and Eglinton, T.I. (2005) Microbial degradation of sedimentary organic matter. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology (special issue: Geobiology)219, 157-170. invited manuscript.

2004

Raymond, P.A., Bauer, J.E., Caraco, N.F., Cole, J.J., Longworth, B.E., and Petsch, S.T. (2004) Controls on the variability of organic matter and dissolved inorganic carbon age in northeast U.S. rivers. Marine Chemistry (special issue honoring John Hedges) 92, 353-366. invited manuscript.

Wildman, R.A., Berner, R.A., Petsch, S.T., Bolton , E.W., Eckert, J.O., Mok, U. and Evans, J.B. (2004) The weathering of sedimentary organic matter as a control on atmospheric O 2: I. Analysis of a black shale. American Journal of Science 304, 234-249.

2003

Petsch, S.T. (2003) Ch. 11: The Global Oxygen Cycle. Treatise on Geochemistry (H.D. Holland and K.K. Turekian, eds.), vol. 8 Biogeochemstry (W.H. Schlesinger, ed.). Invited book chapter. p. 515-556, Elsevier Science, Amsterdam .

Petsch, S.T. , Edwards, K.J., and Eglinton, T.I. (2003) Abundance, distribution and d ¹³C analysis of microbial phospholipid-derived fatty acids in a black shale weathering profile. Organic Geochemistry34, 731-743.

2002

Jaffe, L.A. , Peucker-Ehrenbrink, B., and Petsch, S.T. (2002) Effects of weathering of organic-rich sedimentary rocks on the mobility of rhenium, platinum-group elements and organic carbon. Earth and Planetary Science Letters. 198, 339-353.

2001

Petsch, S.T. , Eglinton, T.I., and Edwards, K.J. (2001) ¹⁴C-dead living biomass: evidence for microbial assimilation of ancient organic carbon during shale weathering. Science, 292, 1127-1131

Petsch, S.T. , Smernik, R.J., Eglinton, T.I., and Oades, J.M. (2001) A solid state ¹³C NMR study of kerogen degradation during black shale weathering. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta ,65, 1867-1882.

Petsch, S.T. , (2001) The carbon cycle and atmospheric evolution. Marella, Newsletter of the Yoho-Burgess Shale Foundation. N° 14. M. Coppold, ed.

2000

Berner, R.A., Petsch, S.T., Beerling, D.J., Popp, B.N., Lane, R.S., Laws, E.A., Westley, M.B., Cassar, N. Woodward, F.I., and Quick, W.P. (2000) Isotope fractionation and atmospheric oxygen: implications for Phanerozoic O 2 Evolution. Science, 287, 1630-1633.

Petsch, S.T. , Berner, R.A., and Eglinton, T.I. (2000) A field study of the chemical weathering of ancient sedimentary organic matter. Organic Geochemistry, 31,475-487.

1999

Petsch, S.T. (1999) Comment on “Carbon isotope ratios of Phanerozoic marine cements: re-evaluating global carbon and sulfur systems”. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, 63, 307-310.

1998

Berner, R.A. and Petsch, S.T. (1998) The sulfur cycle and atmospheric oxygen. Science, 282, 1426-1427.

Petsch, S.T. and Berner, R.A. (1998) Coupling the geochemical cycles of C, P, Fe and S: the effect on atmospheric O 2 and the isotopic records of carbon and sulfur. American Journal of Science, 298, 246-262.