The DOI matches its Crossref record; 8 of the 8 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Calcium Carbonate Concretions Formed by the Decomposition of Organic Matter
Abstract
Bacterial decomposition of butterfish and smelts in small sealed jars containing seawater and other solutions, for periods ranging from 65 to 205 days, results in a large increase in concentrations of dissolved bicarbonate, carbonate, and ammonia (plus volatile amines). Accompanying this is a rise in pH and the precipitation of Ca ++ ion from solution. The Ca ++ is not precipitated as CaCO 3 but instead as a mixture of calcium fatty acid salts or soaps with from 14 to 18 carbon atoms. This can be explained by the thermodynamic instability of CaCO 3 relative to Ca soaps in the presence of excess free fatty acid. It is suggested that some ancient CaCO 3 concretions, especially those enclosing fossils of soft-bodied organisms, may have formed rapidly after death in the form of natural Ca soap (adipocere) which was later converted to CaCO 3 .
Overview
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Citations
Cites
A postulated role of fatty acids in petroleum formation
Cooper, J. E., & Bray, E. E. (1963) · Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta · doi:10.1016/0016-7037(63)90093-0 · Cited by 313
THE SOLUBILITIES OF THE NORMAL SATURATED FATTY ACIDS
RALSTON, A. W., & HOERR, C. W. (1942) · The Journal of Organic Chemistry · doi:10.1021/jo01200a013 · Cited by 214
THE SOLUBILITIES OF THE NORMAL SATURATED FATTY ACIDS. III
HOERR, C. W., SEDGWICK, R. S., & RALSTON, A. W. (1946) · The Journal of Organic Chemistry · doi:10.1021/jo01175a025 · Cited by 194
Twenhofel, W. H. (1933) · The Journal of Physical Chemistry · doi:10.1021/j150344a017 · Cited by 158
Diagenesis of metabolites and a discussion of the origin of petroleum hydrocarbons
Breger, I. A. (1960) · Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta · doi:10.1016/0016-7037(60)90036-3 · Cited by 69
Carbon and oxygen isotope ratios in diagenetic carbonates from marine sediments
Hodgson, W. A. (1966) · Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta · doi:10.1016/0016-7037(66)90121-9 · Cited by 57
Irani, R. R., & Callis, C. F. (1960) · The Journal of Physical Chemistry · doi:10.1021/j100840a034 · Cited by 33
Composition of Combustible Concretions of the Alewife, Alosa pseudoharengus
Sondheimer, E., Dence, W. A., MATTICK, L. R., & Silverman, S. R. (1966) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.152.3719.221 · Cited by 14
Cited by
Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO)
Murchie, S., Arvidson, R., Bedini, P., Beisser, K., Bibring, J. ‐., Bishop, J., Boldt, J., Cavender, P., Choo, T., Clancy, R. T., et al. (2007) · Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets · doi:10.1029/2006je002682 · Cited by 1,114
An Ecological History of the Lake Victoria Basin
Kendall, R. L. (1969) · Ecological Monographs · doi:10.2307/1950740 · Cited by 366
Exploring for a record of ancient Martian life
Farmer, J. D., & Des Marais, D. J. (1999) · Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets · doi:10.1029/1998je000540 · Cited by 354
The role of anoxia in the decay and mineralization of proteinaceous macro-fossils
Allison, P. A. (1988) · Paleobiology · doi:10.1017/s009483730001188x · Cited by 316
Konservat-Lagerstätten: cause and classification
Allison, P. A. (1988) · Paleobiology · doi:10.1017/s0094837300012082 · Cited by 289
Metadata
- Authors
- Berner, R. A.
- Venue
- Science
- Published
- 1968-01-12
- Volume
- 159
- Issue
- 3811
- Pages
- 195-197
- ISSN
- 0036-8075 (ISSN-L)
- 1095-9203
- OpenAlex
- W1983214896
- Cited by
- 253
- References
- 8
- FWCI
- 14.93
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
How to cite
Cite CoChat for the checks on this page, and the paper for its own findings.
- This page
- CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Calcium Carbonate Concretions Formed by the Decomposition of Organic Matter. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1126/science.159.3811.195
- The paper
- Berner, R. A. (1968). Calcium Carbonate Concretions Formed by the Decomposition of Organic Matter. Science. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.159.3811.195
Data sources
Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.