There are a few types of atoms that can be a part of a plant one day, an animal the next day, and then travel downstream as a part of a river’s water the following day. These atoms can be a part of both living things like plants and animals, as well as non-living things like water, air, and even rocks. The same atoms are recycled over and over in different parts of the Earth. This type of cycle of atoms between living and non-living things is known as a biogeochemical cycle.
All of the atoms that are building blocks of living things are a part of biogeochemical cycles. The most common of these are the carbon and nitrogen cycles.
Tiny atoms of carbon and nitrogen are able to move around the planet through these cycles. For example, an atom of carbon is absorbed from the air into the ocean water where it is used by little floating plankton doing photosynthesis to get the nutrition they need. There is the possibility that this little carbon atom becomes part of the plankton’s skeleton, or a part of the skeleton of the larger animal that eats it, and then part of a sedimentary rock when the living things die and only bones are left behind. Carbon that is a part of rocks and fossil fuels like oil, coal, and natural gas may be held away from the rest of the carbon cycle for a long time. These long-term storage places are called “sinks”. When fossil fuels are burned, carbon that had been underground is sent into the air as carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas.
Recently, people have been causing these biogeochemical cycles to change. When we cut down forests, make more factories, and drive more cars that burn fossil fuels, the way that carbon and nitrogen move around the Earth changes. These changes add more greenhouse gases in our atmosphere and this causes climate change.
The element carbon is a part of seawater, the atmosphere, rocks such as limestone and coal, soils, as well as all living things. On our dynamic planet, carbon is able to move from one of these realms to another as a part of the carbon cycle.
Carbon moves from the atmosphere to plants. In the atmosphere, carbon is attached to oxygen in a gas called carbon dioxide (CO2). Through the process of photosynthesis, carbon dioxide is pulled from the air to produce food made from carbon for plant growth.
Carbon moves from plants to animals. Through food chains, the carbon that is in plants moves to the animals that eat them. Animals that eat other animals get the carbon from their food too.
Carbon moves from plants and animals to soils. When plants and animals die, their bodies, wood and leaves decays bringing the carbon into the ground. Some is buried and will become fossil fuels in millions and millions of years.
Carbon moves from living things to the atmosphere. Each time you exhale, you are releasing carbon dioxide gas (CO2) into the atmosphere. Animals and plants need to get rid of carbon dioxide gas through a process called respiration.
Carbon moves from fossil fuels to the atmosphere when fuels are burned. When humans burn fossil fuels to power factories, power plants, cars and trucks, most of the carbon quickly enters the atmosphere as carbon dioxide gas. Each year, five and a half billion tons of carbon is released by burning fossil fuels. Of this massive amount, 3.3 billion tons stays in the atmosphere. Most of the remainder becomes dissolved in seawater.
Carbon moves from the atmosphere to the oceans. The oceans, and other bodies of water, absorb some carbon from the atmosphere. The carbon is dissolved into the water.
Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and traps heat in the atmosphere. Without it and other greenhouse gases, Earth would be a frozen world. But since the start of the Industrial Revolution about 150 years ago humans have burned so much fuel and released so much carbon dioxide into the air that global climate has risen over one degree Fahrenheit. The atmosphere has not held this much carbon for at least 420,000 years according to data from ice cores. The recent increase in amounts of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide is having a significant impact on the warming of our planet.
Carbon moves through our planet over longer time scales as well. For example, over millions of years weathering of rocks on land can add carbon to surface water which eventually runs off to the ocean. Over long time scales, carbon is removed from seawater when the shells and bones of marine animals and plankton collect on the sea floor. These shells and bones are made of limestone, which contains carbon. When they are deposited on the sea floor, carbon is stored from the rest of the carbon cycle for some amount of time. The amount of limestone deposited in the ocean depends somewhat on the amount of warm, tropical, shallow oceans on the planet because this is where prolific limestone-producing organisms such as corals live. The carbon can be released back to the atmosphere if the limestone melts or is metamorphosed in a subduction zone.
