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Branched alkanes with quaternary carbon atoms in Chinese soils: Potential environmental implications

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Chinese Science Bulletin

Abstract

Lipids extracted from 26 modern soils collected from different climate zones in China and Mongolia are analyzed using gas chromatographymass spectrometry. These extracts contain pseudohomologous families of 5,5-diethylalkanes (5,5-DEAs), 6,6-diethylalkanes, 5-butyl-5-ethylalkanes and 6-butyl-6-ethylalkanes, which are first detected in modern soils. All these pseudohomologous series display exclusively odd or exclusively even carbon numbers, clearly indicating a biosynthetic origin, and their carbon number distributions generally covary. The distributions of 5,5-DEAs exhibit strong regional variations, correlated with the spatial distributions of climate and vegetation. The lower molecular weight 5,5-DEAs, maximizing at C21 or C23, dominate in southeast and southwest China samples, while the higher molecular weight 5,5-DEAs with a mode at C29 dominate in cold, arid northwest China and Mongolia. The results demonstrate that the distribution of 5,5-DEAs can serve as a new independent proxy, indicating variations in soil ecosystems and climates, just like the well-known proxy of n-C15–21/n-C22–33 ratios.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Western China’s Environmental Systems, Ministry of Education of China & College of Resources and Environment, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, 730000, China

    Bai Yan, Fang Xiaomin, Wang Yongli & Chen Xiuling

  2. Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100085, China

    Fang Xiaomin

  3. State Key Laboratory of Gas Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou, 730000, China

    Wang Yongli & Wang Youxiao

  4. Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, 60607, USA

    Fabien Kenig

Authors
  1. Bai Yan
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  2. Fang Xiaomin
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  3. Wang Yongli
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  4. Fabien Kenig
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  5. Chen Xiuling
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  6. Wang Youxiao
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Correspondence to Fang Xiaomin.

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Bai, Y., Fang, X., Wang, Y. et al. Branched alkanes with quaternary carbon atoms in Chinese soils: Potential environmental implications. CHINESE SCI BULL 51, 1115–1122 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11434-006-1115-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11434-006-1115-3

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