3 pages, 1 figure, 1 table, 10 references. Publicación incluida en: Select papers from the 17th International Meeting on Organic Geochemistry. 4-8/09/1995, San Sebastián, España.The possibility of the accumulation in soils of stable aliphatic materials has been postulated as a
non-exclusive altemative to classical models for humus formation, based on the selective preservation of
aromatic biomacromolecules. Such a hypothesis represents an actualistic approach to the formation process
of fossil organic sediments and conforms to recent findings regarding the humification process in specific
compartments in active terrestrial soils. In order to bring sorne light into this possible connection we
investigated the pyrolytic behaviour of humin preparations isolated by two physical methods.Peer reviewe
