Focusing on isotope analysis, this volume explores its significance in organic geochemistry and applied sciences. It covers the fundamentals of isotopes and fractionation processes, highlighting applications in environmental biodegradation and fossil matter correlations. The textbook aids students in grasping the interplay between geoscientific, analytical, and chemical aspects of isotopes within complex natural systems. Key themes include the role of isotopes in essential processes like photosynthesis, the global water cycle, and biotic degradation.
This issue introduces fundamental analytical procedures in Organic Geochemistry, covering sampling, sample treatment, and techniques like mass spectrometry and infrared spectroscopy. It aims to familiarize readers with analytical methods, their applications, and standard data evaluation practices, while highlighting potential pitfalls and standard operating procedures.
This third volume focusses on anthropogenic organic pollutants harming the
environment. For such a flexible usage this textbook series 'Fundamentals in
Organic Geochemistry' consists of different volumes with clear defined aspects
and with manageable length.
This second volume in the series 'Fundamentals in Organic Geochemistry' focusses on molecular chemical aspects introducing the structural diversity of natural products, their fate in the sedimentary systems and the consequences of the corresponding alterations for geoscientific questions. Organic Geochemistry is a modern scientific subject characterized by a high transdisciplinarity and located at the edge of chemistry, environmental sciences, geology and biology. Therefore, there is a need for a flexible offer of appropriate academic teaching material on an undergraduate level addressed to the variety of students coming originally from different study disciplines. For such a flexible usage this textbook series consists of different volumes with clear defined aspects and with manageable length.
It is known for milleniums, that water is forming the principle base for the total biosphere including human beings ('Thales [of Milet] says that it [the nature of things] is water' Aristoteles, Metaph. 983 b20), Nevertheless, basically the anthropogenic activities and human requirements, in particular our enormous consume of chemicals, are affecting worldwide the aquatic environment on a rapidly increasing level. Consequently, huge scientific efforts, worldwide, focussed intensively on increasing the knowlegde about the state of pollution and on the most important processes harming the aquatic systems. The overall aim is the rehabilitation and protection of this unique and essential compartment. Environmental studies on riverine and groundwater systems are base research activities at the Institute of Geology and Geochemistry of Petroleum and Coal, RWTH Aachen University. This book summarizes the analytical and organic-geochemical work performed between 1998 and 2003 at this institute. All the individual studies and the corresponding results were separately published in various scientific journals. However, I felt the substantial need to combine these individual parts in order to reveal a comprehensive overview on all the different and novel aspects concerning the organic contamination of rivers and groundwater.
