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Ready for some action? You've got energy to burn. Feeling cramped after all those centuries? Let loose! Float free in the ATMOSPHERE!
Get involved in HUMAN ACTIVITY.
Every hour of every day society depends on energy from forms of carbon that take millenia to make. We drill oil, mine coal, frack natural gas. We extract these fossil fuels from deep in the earth and refine them into combustible fuels. We burn these to move planes, trains and cars, to heat our homes and cook our food, to generate electricity to run our computers and lights. Burning returns that long sequestered carbon to the atmosphere.
Many of our plastics and other polymers are made from refining petroleum. Your entire refrigerator may have come from ancient swamps.
BEGIN AS: Hydrocarbon. BECOME: Carbon Dioxide.
2 C8H18 + 25 O2 => 16 CO2 + 18 H2O
Octane + Oxygen => Carbon Dioxide + Water + Energy
We release energy in hydrocarbons in the process of combustion.
Learn much more with Wikipedia: Combustion, Fossil_fuel
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What's the rush? Why not stick around for another million years or so? Take your time. Stay as ROCK.
Just WAIT AROUND!
Carbon stays in rock, oil, minerals and salts for millions and millions of year.
After millions of years of sub-oceanic-floor movement, the ancient remains of plants and animals trapped in layers of sedimentary rock are carried deep into the earth's fiery core. This organic debris heats up under great pressure, breaks down, then reforms into long chains of carbon and hydrogen known as hydrocarbons. Many different forms of hydrocarbons are made from the bonding of two simple elements, only hydrogen and carbon. Methane, CH4, is the simplest hydrocarbon.
BEGIN AS: Sedimentary Organic Matter. BECOME: Hydrocarbon.
Learn much more with Wikipedia: Hydrocarbon
You are Carbon in Rock
Heat and pressure sure can add up over time. Yet, we endure facing eternity, dwelling below the hurly-burly of ocean and earth surfaces.
99% of all the carbon on earth is stored in the earth's crust. Millions, even hundreds of millions of years may pass before carbon moves along on its journey. The immense time scales of this part of the carbon cycle make rock a virtually permanent carbon storage system.
Without human intervention, the carbon in rock can re-enter the carbon cycle violently through volcanic eruptions or more gradually through vents, geysers and hot springs, or even more gradually through weathering. Human intervention is a fast track to the atmosphere, geologically speaking.
Carbon, so essential for life on earth, makes up only less than 0.001% of the earth's total mass.
Iron: 32.1%, Oxygen: 30.1%, Silicon: 15.1%, Sulfur: 2.9%, Magnesium: 13.9%, Nickel: 1.8%, Calcium: 1.5%, Aluminum: 1.4%, Other: 1.2%
Carbon makes up a small fraction of the total mass of elements on earth.
Learn much more with Wikipedia: Rock_(geology)
