Description:
The central Baltic Sea water column is permanently density stratified leading to stagnating bottom waters and a zonation into an oxic, suboxic and anoxic zone. The anoxic zone of the central Baltic Sea is characterized by strong methane gradients that indicate methane consumption in the suboxic zone. This thesis comprises five papers that are based on investigations of water column and sediment samples from the central Baltic Sea. The aim of these investigations was to assess the geobiology of this stratified system using biomarkers with a focus on bacteriohopanepolyols (BHPs). First, three...