Deterioration and preservation of organic materials on the seabed

Easily degradable organic materials can be preserved astonishingly well in underwater environments. This applies, for instance, to the seabed of the relatively cold and brackish Waters of the Baltic Sea as well as the warmer and much more salty Mediterranean Sea. We provide an overview of the many kinds of biodeterioration processes in water-saturated sediments, with special attention to wood and the activity of organisms that can both rapidly and totally
degrade organic materials. The main reason that well-preserved archaeological artefacts do, nevertheless, exist in abundance in buried and stagnant water environments is a lack of oxygen, which prevents biological activity.