Aquatic particulate organic matter: assembly, growth, and global structure

Particulate Organic Matter (POM), forms and grows in the oceans from colloidal-size precursors, and its sedimentation to the ocean floor represent a major sink of the global carbon cycle. For a more accurate modeling of POM formation, a better insight in its structure, formation rates and underlying aggregation mechanisms is needed. To this end, we propose USAXS experiments covering the sub-micron to micron length scale regime to monitor the structural evolution of nascent POM from model precursors over time, as a function of solution conditions.