Nature – Moore et al. (2023): Long-term organic carbon preservation enhanced by iron and manganese
Oliver W. Moore, Lisa Curti, Clare Woulds, James A. Bradley, Peyman Babakhani, Benjamin J. W. Mills, William B. Homoky, Ke-Qing Xiao, Andrew W. Bray, Ben J. Fisher, Majid Kazemian, Burkhard Kaulich, Andrew W. Dale, Caroline L. Peacock IN: Nature, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06325-9
Simple organic molecules can be geopolymerized into recalcitrant forms by means of the Maillard reaction, although reaction kinetics at marine sedimentary temperatures are thought to be slow. Here the authors present incubation experiments and find that iron and manganese ions and minerals abiotically catalyse the Maillard reaction by up to two orders of magnitude at temperatures relevant to continental margins where most preservation occurs.