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Citation for presentation of the 2016 Alfred E. Treibs Award to Patrick G. Hatcher
Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
ScienceDirect Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta xxx (2017) xxx–xxx www.elsevier.com/locate/gca
Awards Ceremony Speech
Citation for presentation of the 2016 Alfred E. Treibs Award to Patrick G. Hatcher I am privileged and honored to introduce Patrick G. Hatcher as the recipient of the 2016 Alfred E. Treibs Award. I have known Pat for almost twenty years, over which time we have shared an interest in biomacromolecules, biodegradation, and the development of analytical methods. Pat is a true chemist at heart and we have all benefited greatly from his insights on the examination of complex macromolecular materials through state-of-the art spectroscopic analyses. Since 1972 Pat has published over 350 peer-reviewed papers, over 20,000 citations, and has a Google Scholar H-Index of 86. These metrics alone put him near the top of career contributors to organic geochemistry. Nevertheless, it is more the quality and creativity of these papers that set the scale of his many accomplishments. For example, the work by Hatcher et al. (1983) on ‘‘Selective preservation: The origin of petroleum forming aquatic kerogen” was an extremely important contribution to the field of organic geochemistry. This paper covered a broad spectrum of important contributions including: (a) comparative biochemical and solid-state 13C NMR analysis, when the latter was just coming into play, (b) chemical fractionation of humin in parallel with natural degradation in a well-defined sedimentary sequence, and (c) stable carbon isotope analysis of source inorganic carbon in comparison to diagenetic offsets resulting from carbohydrate loss. These pioneering findings were fully confirmed by further comparative studies, including comparisons with kerogens isolated from ancient sedimentary rocks, partly carried out in Dr. Jan de Leeuw’s group then in Delft, and also in Paris with Dr. Claude Largeau’s lab. This paper fundamentally changed the way that geochemists now think about both biodegradation and the origins of kerogen and petroleum, a particularly notable achievement for a recipient of a prize named in honor of Alfred Treibs. Pat along with Mick Wilson, was a major driving force in the early 1980s behind pioneering applications of solidstate 13C NMR as a tool for the comprehensive characterization of organic matter in soils and sediments. One striking example of this work was Hatcher et al. (1981) where they showed that chemical techniques had overestimated the degree of aromaticity of humic substances. He was also
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.gca.2017.01.020
one of the first organic geochemists to comfortably cross the line between the study of organic matter in terrestrial and aquatic environments; this is something he and the late John Hedges both espoused at that time. In the mid-1990’s, Heike Knicker, then a post-doc with Pat, brought a similar renaissance of sorts in the geochemistry of nitrogenous organic substances as revealed in solidstate 15N NMR. Together, they along with H.D. Lu¨demann demonstrated unequivocally that most of the nitrogen in natural soils and sediments is in the form of residual amides and amines, as opposed to structurally complex nitrogen heterocycles – characteristic of advanced humification products. This line of research conceptually circled back to Mangrove Lake sapropel, where they demonstrated that the organic nitrogen in this deposit was also selectively preserved, possibly in some form of peptide physically ‘‘encapsulated” in the matrix of a resistant algal biomacromolecule (Knicker and Hatcher, 1997). Pat’s range of research topics and methods over the last three decades is daunting in scope and variety. In addition to humic substances and kerogens, Pat has worked on a diversity of sample types over his career, such as vascular plant tissues, woods of all types, peats, coals, resins, petroleum, jet fuels, algae, mosses, fossil seed coats, municipal solid waste, and dissolved organic matter in porewaters, rivers and seawater. His analytical targets have included sterols, carbohydrates, polychlorionated biphenyls (PCBs), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), fullerenes, tannins, lignins, proteins, algaenans, and metal complexes. In addition to NMR (1H, 13C and 15N) characterizations, his group has also applied, and often pioneered development of a spectrum of new analytical methods in geochemistry involving analytical pyrolysis, chemolysis (especially with tetramethylammonium hydrolysis (TMAH)), temperaturecontrolled liquefaction, and numerical/statistical structural analyses. Pat played a leading role in the development of TMAH-assisted thermochemolysis for deciphering the structure and sources of complex geomacromolecules. His extensive studies on this topic were chiefly concerned with the mechanism of such thermochemolytic reactions (Filley et al., 1999), and the application of this method for elucidating the structure of aliphatic, resistant biopolymers
2
Conference report / Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta xxx (2017) xxx–xxx
and the protection of proteinaceous moieties via encapsulation in aliphatic materials (Zang et al., 2000). It was around 2002, that Pat’s prowess in spectroscopy once again allowed him to quickly recognize the importance of advances being made in ultrahigh resolution mass spectrometry, and how this technique could be used to better understand complex environmental samples. In 2003, he and his student Sunghwan Kim, published what is now a seminal paper that used elemental compositions plotted on a van Krevelen diagram to identify families of molecules in natural organic matter (Kim et al., 2003). More recently, Pat and his research group discovered that photochemical oxidation of lignin, as well as oxidation by reactive oxygen species, transforms natural organic matter to black carbon-like molecules and carboxylated alicyclic molecules similar to those observed in soils, peats, and natural waters (Chen et al., 2014). This finding, made by use of ultrahigh resolution mass spectrometry, suggests that reactive oxygen species may play a much larger role in the abiotic transformation of plant-derived biomolecules to humified natural organic matter than previously thought. In conclusion, Dr. Patrick G. Hatcher has made substantial contributions to a broad range of topics within organic geochemistry that have significantly advanced the field. His innovative developments in the application of NMR and ultrahigh resolution mass spectrometry has significantly advanced the field of organic geochemistry. Pat has come as close to ‘‘doing it all” scientifically as any organic geochemist of his generation. He has demonstrated extraordinary leadership through his science and service to society, and has proven to be an effective educator and mentor. Pat is a creative, talented and engaging person who is highly deserving of the Award.
References Chen H., Abdulla H.A.N., Sanders R.L., Myneni S.C.B., Mopper K. and Hatcher P.G. (2014) Production of black carbon-like and aliphatic molecules from terrestrial dissolve organic matter in the presence of sunlight and iron. Environ. Sci. Technol. Lett. 1, 309–404. Filley T.R., Minard R.D. and Hatcher P.G. (1999) Tetramethylammonium hydroxide (TMAH) thermochemolysis. Proposed mechanisms based upon the application of 13C-labeled TMAH to a synthetic model lignin dimer. Org. Geochem. 30, 607–622. Hatcher P.G., Schnitzer M., Dennis L.W. and Maciel G.W. (1981) Aromaticity of humic substances in soils. J. Soil Sci. Soc. Am. 45, 1089–1094. Hatcher P.G., Spiker E.C., Szeverenyi N.M. and Maciel G.E. (1983) Selective preservation. The origin of petroleum-forming aquatic kerogen. Nature 305, 498–501. Kim S., Kramer R.W. and Hatcher P.G. (2003) An informative graphical method for analysis of ultrahigh-resolution broadband mass spectra of natural organic matter – the van Krevelen diagram. Anal. Chem. 75, 5336–5344. Knicker H. and Hatcher P.G. (1997) Survival of protein in an organic-rich sediment. Possible protection by encapsulation in organic matter. Naturwissenschaften 84, 231–234. Zang X., van Heemst J.D.H., Dria K. and Hatcher P.G. (2000) Encapsulation of protein in humic acid from a Histosol as an explanation for the occurrence of organic nitrogen in soil and sediment. Org. Geochem. 31, 679–695. Thomas S. Bianchi, presented at the 2016 Gordon Conference in Organic Geochemistry Conference, New Hampshire, USA.
Thomas S. Bianchi Department of Geological Sciences, University of Florida, 205 Williamson Hall, Gainesville, FL 32611-2120, USA E-mail address: tbianchi@ufl.edu
ScienceDirect Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta xxx (2017) xxx–xxx www.elsevier.com/locate/gca
Awards Ceremony Speech
Citation for presentation of the 2016 Alfred E. Treibs Award to Patrick G. Hatcher I am privileged and honored to introduce Patrick G. Hatcher as the recipient of the 2016 Alfred E. Treibs Award. I have known Pat for almost twenty years, over which time we have shared an interest in biomacromolecules, biodegradation, and the development of analytical methods. Pat is a true chemist at heart and we have all benefited greatly from his insights on the examination of complex macromolecular materials through state-of-the art spectroscopic analyses. Since 1972 Pat has published over 350 peer-reviewed papers, over 20,000 citations, and has a Google Scholar H-Index of 86. These metrics alone put him near the top of career contributors to organic geochemistry. Nevertheless, it is more the quality and creativity of these papers that set the scale of his many accomplishments. For example, the work by Hatcher et al. (1983) on ‘‘Selective preservation: The origin of petroleum forming aquatic kerogen” was an extremely important contribution to the field of organic geochemistry. This paper covered a broad spectrum of important contributions including: (a) comparative biochemical and solid-state 13C NMR analysis, when the latter was just coming into play, (b) chemical fractionation of humin in parallel with natural degradation in a well-defined sedimentary sequence, and (c) stable carbon isotope analysis of source inorganic carbon in comparison to diagenetic offsets resulting from carbohydrate loss. These pioneering findings were fully confirmed by further comparative studies, including comparisons with kerogens isolated from ancient sedimentary rocks, partly carried out in Dr. Jan de Leeuw’s group then in Delft, and also in Paris with Dr. Claude Largeau’s lab. This paper fundamentally changed the way that geochemists now think about both biodegradation and the origins of kerogen and petroleum, a particularly notable achievement for a recipient of a prize named in honor of Alfred Treibs. Pat along with Mick Wilson, was a major driving force in the early 1980s behind pioneering applications of solidstate 13C NMR as a tool for the comprehensive characterization of organic matter in soils and sediments. One striking example of this work was Hatcher et al. (1981) where they showed that chemical techniques had overestimated the degree of aromaticity of humic substances. He was also
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.gca.2017.01.020
one of the first organic geochemists to comfortably cross the line between the study of organic matter in terrestrial and aquatic environments; this is something he and the late John Hedges both espoused at that time. In the mid-1990’s, Heike Knicker, then a post-doc with Pat, brought a similar renaissance of sorts in the geochemistry of nitrogenous organic substances as revealed in solidstate 15N NMR. Together, they along with H.D. Lu¨demann demonstrated unequivocally that most of the nitrogen in natural soils and sediments is in the form of residual amides and amines, as opposed to structurally complex nitrogen heterocycles – characteristic of advanced humification products. This line of research conceptually circled back to Mangrove Lake sapropel, where they demonstrated that the organic nitrogen in this deposit was also selectively preserved, possibly in some form of peptide physically ‘‘encapsulated” in the matrix of a resistant algal biomacromolecule (Knicker and Hatcher, 1997). Pat’s range of research topics and methods over the last three decades is daunting in scope and variety. In addition to humic substances and kerogens, Pat has worked on a diversity of sample types over his career, such as vascular plant tissues, woods of all types, peats, coals, resins, petroleum, jet fuels, algae, mosses, fossil seed coats, municipal solid waste, and dissolved organic matter in porewaters, rivers and seawater. His analytical targets have included sterols, carbohydrates, polychlorionated biphenyls (PCBs), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), fullerenes, tannins, lignins, proteins, algaenans, and metal complexes. In addition to NMR (1H, 13C and 15N) characterizations, his group has also applied, and often pioneered development of a spectrum of new analytical methods in geochemistry involving analytical pyrolysis, chemolysis (especially with tetramethylammonium hydrolysis (TMAH)), temperaturecontrolled liquefaction, and numerical/statistical structural analyses. Pat played a leading role in the development of TMAH-assisted thermochemolysis for deciphering the structure and sources of complex geomacromolecules. His extensive studies on this topic were chiefly concerned with the mechanism of such thermochemolytic reactions (Filley et al., 1999), and the application of this method for elucidating the structure of aliphatic, resistant biopolymers
2
Conference report / Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta xxx (2017) xxx–xxx
and the protection of proteinaceous moieties via encapsulation in aliphatic materials (Zang et al., 2000). It was around 2002, that Pat’s prowess in spectroscopy once again allowed him to quickly recognize the importance of advances being made in ultrahigh resolution mass spectrometry, and how this technique could be used to better understand complex environmental samples. In 2003, he and his student Sunghwan Kim, published what is now a seminal paper that used elemental compositions plotted on a van Krevelen diagram to identify families of molecules in natural organic matter (Kim et al., 2003). More recently, Pat and his research group discovered that photochemical oxidation of lignin, as well as oxidation by reactive oxygen species, transforms natural organic matter to black carbon-like molecules and carboxylated alicyclic molecules similar to those observed in soils, peats, and natural waters (Chen et al., 2014). This finding, made by use of ultrahigh resolution mass spectrometry, suggests that reactive oxygen species may play a much larger role in the abiotic transformation of plant-derived biomolecules to humified natural organic matter than previously thought. In conclusion, Dr. Patrick G. Hatcher has made substantial contributions to a broad range of topics within organic geochemistry that have significantly advanced the field. His innovative developments in the application of NMR and ultrahigh resolution mass spectrometry has significantly advanced the field of organic geochemistry. Pat has come as close to ‘‘doing it all” scientifically as any organic geochemist of his generation. He has demonstrated extraordinary leadership through his science and service to society, and has proven to be an effective educator and mentor. Pat is a creative, talented and engaging person who is highly deserving of the Award.
References Chen H., Abdulla H.A.N., Sanders R.L., Myneni S.C.B., Mopper K. and Hatcher P.G. (2014) Production of black carbon-like and aliphatic molecules from terrestrial dissolve organic matter in the presence of sunlight and iron. Environ. Sci. Technol. Lett. 1, 309–404. Filley T.R., Minard R.D. and Hatcher P.G. (1999) Tetramethylammonium hydroxide (TMAH) thermochemolysis. Proposed mechanisms based upon the application of 13C-labeled TMAH to a synthetic model lignin dimer. Org. Geochem. 30, 607–622. Hatcher P.G., Schnitzer M., Dennis L.W. and Maciel G.W. (1981) Aromaticity of humic substances in soils. J. Soil Sci. Soc. Am. 45, 1089–1094. Hatcher P.G., Spiker E.C., Szeverenyi N.M. and Maciel G.E. (1983) Selective preservation. The origin of petroleum-forming aquatic kerogen. Nature 305, 498–501. Kim S., Kramer R.W. and Hatcher P.G. (2003) An informative graphical method for analysis of ultrahigh-resolution broadband mass spectra of natural organic matter – the van Krevelen diagram. Anal. Chem. 75, 5336–5344. Knicker H. and Hatcher P.G. (1997) Survival of protein in an organic-rich sediment. Possible protection by encapsulation in organic matter. Naturwissenschaften 84, 231–234. Zang X., van Heemst J.D.H., Dria K. and Hatcher P.G. (2000) Encapsulation of protein in humic acid from a Histosol as an explanation for the occurrence of organic nitrogen in soil and sediment. Org. Geochem. 31, 679–695. Thomas S. Bianchi, presented at the 2016 Gordon Conference in Organic Geochemistry Conference, New Hampshire, USA.
Thomas S. Bianchi Department of Geological Sciences, University of Florida, 205 Williamson Hall, Gainesville, FL 32611-2120, USA E-mail address: tbianchi@ufl.edu