6.1A Stores and fluxes

• Types of Carbon:

  • Inorganic
  • organic
  • Gaseous
• Organic carbon = Found in plant material
• Inorganic Carbon = Found in rocks as bicarbonates and carbonates.
• Gaseous Carbon = Found as CO2, CH4 and CO
• System = How the carbon operates with inputs, stores, flows and outputs
• Equilibrium = How the carbon cycle is balanced and maintained
• Flux = the movement or transfer of carbon between stores - create cycles and feedback
• Carbon cycle

  
• Geological Carbon cycle:

  • This slow part of the cycle is focused on the huge carbon stores in rocks and sediments with reservoir turnover rates of at least 100,000 years
  • Organic matter buried deep in sediments are protected from decay which means it takes millions of years to turn into fossil fuels
  • Carbon flows through volcanic eruptions, chemical weathering, erosion and sediment formation on the ocean floor

  
• Bio-geochemical cycle:

  • This fast part of the carbon cycle has large fluxes and rapid reservoir turnovers of a few years up to a thousand years
  • Carbon is sequestered in and flows between the atmosphere, oceans, ocean sediments, vegetation, soils and freshwater

  
• Reservoir turnover times = a measure of how length carbon stays in the reservoir (store)
• Atmosphere = Has carbon dioxide and compounds such as methane
• Hydrosphere = as dissolved carbon dioxide
• lithosphere =  as carbonates in limestone and fossil fuels (e.g. coal, oil and gas)
• Biosphere = in living and dead organisms
• Cryosphere = biological carbon is stored in permafrost, which prevents bacterial decay