The balance between photosynthetic organic carbon production and respiration controls atmospheric composition and climate 1,2. The majority of organic carbon is respired back to carbon dioxide in the biosphere, but a small fraction escapes remineralization and is preserved over geologic timescales 3. By removing reduced carbon from Earth's surface, this sequestration process promotes atmospheric oxygen accumulation 2 and carbon dioxide removal 1. Two major mechanisms have been proposed to explain organic carbon preservation: selective preservation of biochemically unreactive compounds 4,5 and protection resulting from interactions with a mineral matrix 6,7. While both mechanisms can play a role across a range of environments and timescales, their global relative importance on 10 3-to 10 5-year timescales remains uncertain 4. Here we present a global dataset of the distributions of organic carbon activation energy and corresponding radiocarbon ages in soils, sediments, and dissolved organic carbon; we find that activation energy distributions broaden over time in all mineral-containing samples. This result requires increasing bondstrength diversity, consistent with the formation of organo-mineral bonds 8 but inconsistent with selective preservation. Radiocarbon ages further reveal that high-energy, mineralbound organic carbon persists for millennia relative to low-energy, unbound organic carbon. Our results provide globally coherent evidence for the proposed 7 importance of mineral protection in promoting organic carbon preservation. We suggest that similar studies of bond-strength diversity in ancient sediments may elucidate how and why organic carbon preservation-and thus atmospheric composition and climate-has varied over geologic time. Two classes of mechanisms-selectivity and protection-have been proposed to explain why some organic carbon (OC) escapes remineralization in soils and sediments 4-7. Biochemical selectivity hypotheses state that intrinsically bioavailable compounds such as sugars and amino acids are rapidly respired, whereas "recalcitrant" (macro)molecules such as lignin are selectively preserved due to their low energy yield, large size, and/or a lack of enzymes that can decompose them 4,5. Selective preservation has been extensively documented in dissolved OC (DOC) 9 , decaying woody tissue 10 , and sapropel sediments containing almost exclusively organic matter 5. In contrast, protection hypotheses state that particles shield OC from respiration regardless of intrinsic recalcitrance, potentially due to occlusion within pore spaces that are inaccessible to microbes and their extracellular enzymes 4,8,11-14. Specifically, protection often involves inspiration was always invaluable. We thank the National Ocean Sciences Accelerator Mass Spectrometer staff, especially A

Lithospheric organic carbon ("petrogenic"; OC) is oxidized during exhumation and subsequent erosion of mountain ranges. This process is a considerable source of carbon dioxide (CO) to the atmosphere over geologic time scales, but the mechanisms that govern oxidation rates in mountain landscapes are poorly constrained. We demonstrate that, on average, 67 ± 11% of the OC initially present in bedrock exhumed from the tropical, rapidly eroding Central Range of Taiwan is oxidized in soils, leading to CO emissions of 6.1 to 18.6 metric tons of carbon per square kilometer per year. The molecular and isotopic evolution of bulk OC and lipid biomarkers during soil formation reveals that OC remineralization is microbially mediated. Rapid oxidation in mountain soils drives CO emission fluxes that increase with erosion rate, thereby counteracting CO drawdown by silicate weathering and biospheric OC burial.

<p>The vast majority of organic carbon (OC) produced by life is respired back to carbon dioxide (CO<sub>2</sub>), but roughly 0.1% escapes and is preserved over geologic timescales. By sequestering reduced carbon from Earth’s surface, this “slow OC leak” contributes to CO<sub>2</sub> removal and promotes the accumulation of atmospheric oxygen and oxidized minerals. Countering this, OC contained within sedimentary rocks is oxidized during exhumation and erosion of mountain ranges. By respiring previously sequestered reduced carbon, erosion consumes atmospheric oxygen and produces CO<sub>2</sub>. The balance between these two processes—preservation and respiration—regulates atmospheric composition, Earth-surface redox state, and global climate. Despite this importance, the governing mechanisms remain poorly constrained. To provide new insight, we developed a method that investigates OC composition using bond-strength distributions coupled with radiocarbon ages. Here I highlight a suite of recent results using this approach, and I show that biospheric OC interacts with particles and becomes physiochemically protected during aging, thus promoting preservation. I will discuss how this mechanistic framework can help elucidate why OC preservation—and thus atmospheric composition, Earth-surface redox state, and climate—has varied throughout Earth history.</p>