Diagenesis of oleic acid in an estuarine sediment

Radiolabelled ( 14 C, 3 H) oleic acid, when incubated in estuarine sediment for 3–14 days in the laboratory, was rapidly degraded to 14 CO 2 . A small portion of the labels was also incorporated into C 12 C 18 n -alkanoic acids in relative proportions approximating to the carbon-number distributions observed for the sediment itself. The implication is that these alkanoic acids in aquatic sediments result predominantly from in situ microbial synthesis.