Normalization of sedimentary lipid biomarker concentrations to total organic carbon in principal component analysis

The objective of this study is to demonstrate the importance of normalizing lipid biomarker concentrations in sediment to total organic carbon (TOC) f or principal component analysis (PCA) by using n-alkanols and aliphatic hyd rocarbons in marine sediments collected from the East China Sea shelf off n orthern Taiwan; In performing PCA, logarithmically transformed data and z-s core function transformed data along with the raw data were compared with T OC normalized data. Results show that the positions of n-alkanol variables in the loading plot using TOC normalized data are in good agreement with th e organic geochemical knowledge in terms of sources. For aliphatic hydrocar bons, the positions of samples in the score plot using TOC normalized data are different from those using the raw data and z-score function transforme d data. It is suggested that normalization of lipid biomarker concentration s with TOC be taken into consideration in performing PCA when the grain siz e distributions of sediments ina study area vary in a wide range.