Soils and river sediments were frozen and freezedried at ETH Zürich. Soils were sieved, and the fraction <2 mm was used for further analysis. Analytical techniques for brGDGT analyses follow Hopmans et al. (2016) and Freymond et al. (2017) and are summarized here with a detailed description in the supporting information. Briey, between 2 and 3 g of the soil samples and around 20 g of the river sediments were
extracted with solvents in a microwave or an automated extraction system. After purification via column chromatography and preltration, the GDGT distributions were analyzed by high performance liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (HPLC MS) at ETH Zürich.
