Carbon Isotopes in Individual Hydrocarbons Separated from Bulk Organic Matter in Marine Samples

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High pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC) techniques will be used to separate from the complex mixture of total organic carbon in coastal marine sediments enough of several pure individual lipid compounds for carbon isotopic analyses on the single compounds. The geochemical rationale for doing so is that more valuable and specific process oriented information will be obtained from determinations of 13c/12c ratios and ratios 14c activities in individual compounds than from measurements on either total organic C or on classes of compounds. The 13c/12c ratios should reveal whether the compounds are primarily derived from marine plankton or are terrestrially derived, and the 14c activities will reveal when they were formed. The key to the isolation of milligram amounts of each compound in purities exceeding 95% is a straightforward, nonaqueous, reverse phase HPLC technique which has so far been overlooked by environmental chemists.