The Carbon Cycle Geological Carbon Cycle Photosynthesis

1. The Carbon Cycle

2. Carbon
 4th most abundant
element
 “Building Block” of life.
 Is the anchor of all organic
substances
 Found in all living things,
atmosphere, and
sediment on the ocean
floor.

3. The Carbon Cycle
http://www.eo.ucar.edu/kids/green/images/carboncycle_sm.jpg

4. The Carbon Cycle
http://www.kidsgeo.com/images/carbon-cycle.gif

5. categories
 Geological- large time scale carbon cycle.
(millions of years)
 Biological/physical- shorter time scale
carbon cycle. (days to thousands of years)

6. Geological Carbon Cycle
 Through a process called weathering, carbonic
acid has slowly combined with magnesium and
calcium to create insoluble carbonates.
 The cycle continues by drawing the carbonates
into the mantle by subduction.
 The carbon is returned to the atmosphere
through volcanic eruption

7. Photosynthesis
 Plants absorb carbon out
of the atmosphere.
Create Carbohydrates.
 Animals burn these
“carbs” through
respiration.
 Respiration turns them
back into CO2 which is
released back into the
atmosphere.
 This cycle is 1,000 time
more effective than the
Geological.http://grapevine.net.au/~grunwald/une/KLAs/science/irrigation-photosynthesis.gif

8. Cycle Amounts
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/CarbonCycle/carbon_cycle4.php

9. Carbon Amounts
 Carbon= .04% of atmosphere
 1,900 gigatons of Carbon in Biosphere.
 36,000 gigatons of Carbon in the ocean.
 60,000,000 gigatons of Carbon in
sedimentary rock
 4,000 gigatons of Carbon in fossil fuel
deposits

10. Fire
 Eats away at biomass
and vegetation to
produce CO2 into the
atmosphere.
 The biomass that the
fire burned is killed and
eventually
decomposes creating
more CO2 .
http://www.nmsu.edu/~safety/images/fire_meaney.gif

11. Human Role
 Fossil Fuel Burning and
Deforestation.
 When we burn fossil
fuels, we move carbon
more rapidly than the
natural cycle allows for.
Carbon concentrations
increase.
 Deforestation is taking
the carbon from living
plants and trees and
sending it back into the
atmosphere http://library.thinkquest.org/17531/fossiltitle.jpg

12. Human Role
 “The result is that humans
are adding ever-increasing
amounts of extra carbon
dioxide into the
atmosphere. Because of
this, atmospheric carbon
dioxide concentrations are
higher today than they
have been over the last
half-million years or
longer.” (NASA)

13. Human Role
 “In the 1990’s, deforestation and other changes
in land use caused 1-2 petagrams (1-2 billion
metric tons) of carbon to flow from the biota to
the atmosphere annually.” (Encyclopedia of the
Earth)
 Equilibrium between carbon in the atmosphere
has been disrupted by fossil fuels burning. (2
petagrams greater from atmosphere to ocean)