immobile. The percentage stays the same, so even though the 

 same percentage of lignins remains it is still safer, you would 

 say, to date only the cellulose and to throw out the lignins. 



Barghoorn: I think so. I think you could even be more safe and say, what 



pH could you possibly get in nature. Anything that wouldn't 

 come out in 2 percent caustic you could assume never did move. 



But you see in a salt marsh you have a whole lot of complicating 

 factors. You have other things in the plant tissues besides 

 anaerobic degradation products. You have on the surface a 

 constant biological activity which provides stuff for immediate 

 transport. A study of peat shows that the bulk of the peat or- 

 ganic remains are degraded probably within a few years on the 

 very surface under rapid aerobic processes. It is the stuff that 

 gets down in underneath that is intriguing. That is what I was 

 interested in. So much of our coal seams and lignites, etc, are 

 quite probably deposited under anaerobic conditions. That is 

 the only reason they are there, because they haven't undergone 

 rapid aerobic oxidation. It is very complicated. 



Rubin: You say that Barnstable had a high alkalinity? 



Barghoorn: 1 don't know. (Turning to Redfield) Do you have any pH 



measurements ? 



Redfield: Not on these. 



Burbanck:' 1 was just wondering, since I heard Ed Moul describe the vege- 



tation of Cape Cod, and certainly the two sides of the Cape seem 

 to be quite comparable in their vegetation, whether or not anal- 

 ysis where we have such a discrepancy in tide in a very small 

 area with the same plants might help to point up the already ex- 

 cellent evidence as to how things have been affected, because 

 on one side there is a 2. 5 foot tide and on the other side, 9. 

 My other point is in walking down many of these estuaries on the 

 Cape I come to an area almost devoid of life where, working with 

 a Hayward dredge I find a jelly-like material. When this gets on 

 me and dries, it looks like clay. I was wondering whether anal- 

 ysis of this jelly, apparently anaerobic and full of H^S, might 

 have some relationship to this clay which keeps cropping up all 

 the time in all of these studies. In some of the places it seems 

 to remain in a deep area or perhaps is left stranded by the changes 

 in meanders. It is quite possible that peat would overgrow this 

 material, and it would remain there and be consolidated with the 

 water being squeezed out. 



Barghoorn: Is this organic ? 



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