Fluorescence of alkaline-extractable organic matter from a sediment core collected in the Baltic Sea

In this study organic mater fluorescence is characterized by excitation-emission matrix spectroscopy on alkaline extracted DOM from a Baltic Sea sediment core that spanned 8500 years and fluctuating levels of hypoxia. Our results showed that three underlying components had strong correlations with carbon, nitrogen content and δ15N. Our results demonstrate that optical properties of extracted OM from sediments reveal information about OM quality and quantity similar to those of biomarkers, which can be a useful additional tool for investigating OM deposition.