“…Because so much SOM is currently stabilized simply by environmental conditions, most efforts to evaluate the quality of organic carbon stored in permafrost region soils have focused on characterizing the chemical composition of the organic matter (e.g., Dai et al, 2002a;Turetsky et al, 2007;Pedersen et al, 2011). Chemical characterization studies have run the gamut of methodologies in efforts to assess the current state of degradation -from wet chemical fractionations (acid/base extractions, molecular biomarkers, and water or solvent extractions; e.g., Uhlířová et al, 2007;Paulter et al, 2010;Hugelius et al, 2012) to various types of spectrochemical analysis (nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, pyrolysis-gas chromatography/mass spectrometry, mid-infrared spectroscopy; e.g., Dai et al, 2002a, b;Andersen and White, 2006;Waldrop et al, 2010;Pedersen et al, 2011;Pengerud et al, 2013).…”