This week I am at the 26th IMOG conference, which is taking place in the cold, wet setting of Tenerife. IMOG, the International Meeting on Organic Geochemistry, is a medium sized conference devoted to both academic biogeosciences, especially molecular studies, and also cutting edge research from the oil industry.
Fact of the day: speleothems (stalactites and stalagmites) contain less than 0.01% organic carbon – they are mostly calcium carbonate of course – but you can dissolve away the minerals and inject this tiny fraction directly into an LCMS in order to measure specific organic molecules, and even calculate their carbon isotope composition!