ABSTRACT
Soil and sediment-derived natural organic matter (NOM) are ubiquitous in the environment. The importance placed on understanding the functional and structural compositions of NOM derives from this ubiquity, and a quest to better understand how its presence affects many fundamental environmental processes, including carbon cycling [1] and sequestration [2,3], health of soils (and consequent agricultural productivity) as evidenced by the quality and quantity of NOM present [4], and pollutant fate and transport governed, in part, by how NOM (in dissolved and undissolved form) influence contaminant sorption and desorption patterns [5].
