Humic Compounds in Seawater and Marine Sediments from Antarctica

This paper reports the results of various types of analysis and physico-chemical characterization of several samples of humic compounds extracted from Antarctic seawater and marine sediments. Several features of Antarctic humic compounds are evidenced. In seawater only fulvic acids are present. Fluorescence spectra of filtered seawater are similar to those of aquatic fulvics extracted from the same location. In sediments, only humic acids are present; they are characterized by a high aliphatic fraction and large quantities of aminoacids, as shown by NMR and IR. The particulate is a mixture of inorganic and organic matter, the latter consisting of proteinaceous material, carbohydrates and lipids.