Reply to bg-2018-513-RC1 (Jan de Leeuw)

Abstract

The title suggests more than the contents of the full article, since: 1) Cyanobacteria, Algae, Higher plants, ciliates, fungi and many bacteria and Archaea present in the Pleistocene setting were not present during the "early Earth", i.e. the (early) Archean. . ., Author's response: We agree in that the organic matter sources of modern and Archean organic matter were certainly not identical. We therefore will use a more cautious wording of the title, avoiding the term 'analog' in respect to organic matter.