the cycles

7/29/2019 The Cycles

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The carbon cycle is the way carbon is stored and replaced onEarth. Some of the main events take

hundreds of millions of years, others happen annually.

The main ways that carbon gets into the carbon cycle are volcanoes, and the burning of fossil fuels like

coal and gas. Through most of history, volcanoes were the biggest source of carbon to the carbon cycle,

but in the last hundred years, people burning fossil fuels have added much more CO 2 to the air thanvolcanoes have, by about a hundred times. That is, for every ton of CO 2 added to the air by volcanoes,

about 100 tons of CO2 have been added to the air by people.

The main way carbon gets taken out of the atmosphere is byphotosynthesisby living organisms. Some

of this gets released as they die and decompose, but a proportion gets buried in sediment. This is shown

in the diagram. Sediment turns torock, and it is the carbonate rocks likelimestonewhich contain the now-

solid CO2. Some of the carbon from plants also becomes part of the soil, where it can stay for a long time

before decomposing.

Another process takes CO2 out of the air.Weatheringby rain washes out CO2 in the form of

dilutecarbonic acid. This reacts with rock, helping to dissolve and destroy it. This also ends up as

sediment.

"Weathering is a large consumer of the atmospheric carbon dioxide essential for dissolving

rocks".[1]

Some CO2 is also dissolved in the ocean. Right now, the oceans are taking in more CO 2 than they

are releasing, every year. However, this is making the oceans more acidic.

The store of carbon insedimentary rockis far greater than the CO2 in the atmosphere (this is not

shown in the diagram). Eventually it returns to the air as oceanic plates subduct in plate tectonics. At

the margins of plate boundaries (and some other places) volcanoes form and spew out CO 2. This

completes the cycle.
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The Carbon Cycle is a process wherecarbonisrecycledthrough theecosystem.

Theconcentrationof carbon inlivingmatter(18%) is almost 100 times greater than its concentration

in the earth (0.19%). So living things extract carbon from their nonlivingenvironment. For life to

continue, this carbon must be recycled.[2]

See the diagram for a detailed look at the carbon cycle. An

example of a route carbon takes in thiscycleiscarbon dioxidein theatmosphereis absorbed

byplantsand used inphotosynthesisto producesugarswhich the plant uses forenergy. When theplant dies, it decomposes and the carbon stored in the plant will, over millions of years, form

intocoal(afossil fuel). The coal isburntand gives off carbon dioxide which goes into the

atmosphere. Also the carbon cycle has to relate to quantum mechanics due to the restoration of

water

At the moment, the carbon cycle, and how human activity is affecting it, is a big topic in international

news. Fossil fuels are anon-renewable resourcewhich means that once we've burned them all, there

is not any more, and our use of fossil fuels has nearly doubled every 20 years since 1900 .[3]

Also, the

burning of fossil fuels producespollutionwhich contributes to thegreenhouse effectandacid rain.

The sulfur cycle is the collection of processes by which sulfur moves to and from minerals (including the

waterways) and living systems. Suchbiogeochemical cyclesare important ingeologybecause they affect

many minerals. Biogeochemical cycles are also important for life becausesulfuris anessential element,

being a constituent of manyproteinsandcofactors.[1]

Steps of the sulfur cycle are:

Mineralization oforganic sulfurinto inorganic forms, such ashydrogen sulfide(H2S), elemental sulfur,

as well assulfide minerals.
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Oxidationof hydrogen sulfide,sulfide, and elemental sulfur (S) tosulfate(SO42

).

Reduction of sulfate to sulfide.

Incorporation of sulfide into organic compounds (including metal-containing derivatives).

These are often termed as follows:

Assimilative sulfate reduction (see alsosulfur assimilation) in which sulfate (SO42) is reduced

byplants,fungiand variousprokaryotes. The oxidation states of sulfur are +6 in sulfate and 2 in

RSH.

Desulfurization in which organic molecules containing sulfur can be desulfurized, producing

hydrogen sulfide gas (H2S, oxidation state = 2). An analogous process for organic nitrogen

compounds is deamination.

Oxidation of hydrogen sulfide produces elemental sulfur (S8), oxidation state = 0. This reaction

occurs in thephotosyntheticgreen and purple sulfurbacteriaand somechemolithotrophs. Often

the elemental sulfur is stored aspolysulfides.Oxidation of elemental sulfurby sulfur oxidizers produces sulfate.

Dissimilative sulfur reduction in which elemental sulfur can be reduced to hydrogen sulfide.

Dissimilative sulfate reduction in whichsulfate reducersgenerate hydrogen sulfide from sulfate.

Sulfur cycle

Part IV of "Matter cycles": The sulfur cycle

Sulphuris one of the components that make up proteins and vitamins. Proteins consist of amino acidsthat contain sulphur atoms. Sulphur is important for the functioning of proteins and enzymes inplants, and in animals that depend upon plants for sulphur. Plants absorb sulphur when it is dissolvedin water. Animals consume these plants, so that they take up enough sulphur to maintain their health.

Most of the earth's sulphur is tied up in rocks and salts or buried deep in the ocean in oceanicsediments. Sulphur can also be found in the atmosphere. It enters the atmosphere through bothnatural and human sources. Natural recourses can be for instance volcanic eruptions, bacterialprocesses, evaporation from water, or decaying organisms. When sulphur enters the atmospherethrough human activity, this is mainly a consequence of industrial processes where sulphur dioxide(SO2) and hydrogen sulphide (H2S) gases are emitted on a wide scale.

When sulphur dioxide enters the atmosphere it will react with oxygen to produce sulphur trioxide gas(SO3), or with other chemicals in the atmosphere, to produce sulphur salts. Sulphur dioxide may also

react with water to produce sulphuric acid (H2SO4). Sulphuric acid may also be produced fromdemethylsulphide, which is emitted to the atmosphere by plankton species.All these particles will settle back onto earth, or react with rain and fall back onto earth asaciddeposition. The particles will than be absorbed by plants again and are released back into theatmosphere, so that the sulphur cycle will start over again.
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A schematic representation of the sulphur cycle:

Read more:http://www.lenntech.com/sulphur-cycle.htm#ixzz2Zgtv4Los
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Click for larger image

Phosphorus Cycle

Phosphorus enters the environment from rocks

or deposits laid down on the earth many yearsago. The phosphate rock is commercially

available form is called apatite. Other deposits

may be from fossilized bone or bird droppingscalled guano. Weathering and erosion of rocksgradually releases phosphorus as phosphate ions

which are soluble in water. Land plants need

phosphate as a fertilizer or nutrient.

Phosphate is incorporated into many molecules

essential for life such as ATP, adenosine

triphosphate, which is important in the storageand use of energy. It is also in the backbone of

DNA and RNA which is involved with coding

for genetics.

When plant materials and waste products decay

through bacterial action, the phosphate isreleased and returned to the environment for

reuse.

Much of the phosphate eventually is washed intothe water from erosion and leaching. Again

water plants and algae utilize the phosphate as a

nutrient. Studies have shown that phosphate is

the limiting agent in the growth of plants andalgae. If not enough is present, the plants are

slow growing or stunted. If too much phosphate

is present excess growth may occur, particularlyin algae.

A large percentage of the phosphate in water isprecipitated from the water as iron phosphate

which is insoluble. If the phosphate is in shallow

sediments, it may be readily recycled back into

the water for further reuse. In deeper sediments

in water, it is available for use only as part of ageneral uplifting of rock formations for the cycle

to repeat itself.
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Click for larger image

Human Inputs to the Phosphorus Cycle:

Human influences on the phosphate cycle come

mainly from the introduction and use ofcommercial synthetic fertilizers. The phosphate

is obtained through mining of certain deposits ofcalcium phosphate called apatite. Huge quantitiesof sulfuric acid are used in the conversion of the

phosphate rock into a fertilizer product called

"super phosphate".

Plants may not be able to utilize all of the

phosphate fertilizer applied, as a consequence,much of it is lost form the land through the water

run-off. The phosphate in the water is eventually

precipitated as sediments at the bottom of thebody of water. In certain lakes and ponds this

may be redissolved and recyled as a problem

nutrient.

Animal wastes or manure may also be applied to

the land as fertilizer. If misapplied on frozen

ground during the winter, much of it may lost asrun-off during the spring thaw. In certain area

very large feed lots of animals, may result in

excessive run-off of phosphate and nitrate into

streams.

Other human sources of phosphate are in the out

flows from municipal sewage treatment plants.Without an expensive tertiary treatment, the

phosphate in sewage is not removed during

various treatment operations. Again an extraamount of phosphate enters the water.
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the cycles

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