| Within the natural sciences, it has long been recognized that biological activity can modify the texture, structure and composition of surface sediments. Darwin (1881) already examined the stirring of soils by burrowing earthworms and made detailed observations on how these organisms affect soil processes. A similar phenomenon can be observed in aquatic sediments, which are inhabited by a diverse biological community, supported by the flux of organic matter and oxygen from the overlying water column. Surface sediments of oceans, estuaries, lakes and rivers are highly active biogeochemical environments and an effective way to generate insight in the complexity of the interactions is by means of so-called general early diagenetic models (e.g. Soetaert et al,... |
