Is the carbon dioxide in the air gradually becoming locked up in sedimentary rocks?
Over millions of years, silicate volcanic rocks interact with carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to make carbonate rocks and silica. Some geologists think that uplifting the Tibetan plateau over the past few tens of millions of years has led to an overall reduction of carbon dioxide, so that the earth is now cooler than in the age of dinosaurs. Human carbon dioxide is another matter altogether, with a much shorter timescale. There is absolutely no doubt that the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased by something like a third since the beginning of the industrial revolution, and that this is due to the burning of fossil fuels.
Some of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is being dissolved in water in the oceans: This is converted by marine organisms to CaCO3 which is deposited as reefs and other carbonate systems and eventually locked up in Carbonate rocks. This process is very slow and not significant in terms of reducing the C02 in the atmosphere.
Yes, the burial of carbon in sediments is part of the carbon cycle. It isn’t a very fast process, so it is easy to disrupt the balance for a while. This is what we (people) have done over the past couple hundred years, sent carbon into the atmosphere faster than the cycle can take it out. If all carbon releases from man were to stop today, it would still be decades to centuries before the system worked itself back into balance.
we are putting carbon in the form of co2 into the atmosphere in a far greater volume than it is being locked into the earth.earth locked up the carbon many eons ago in the form of coal,gas, and crude oil,but we needed the energy,so we dug it out and burned it,and all that carbon is now loaded up in the atmosphere. all life on earth is carbon based,we incorporate it in the atoms our bodies,trees,plants ,people,all life. when it all dies the carbon gets put in the atmosphere but mostly inside the earth.but it’s the carbon from alga ,trees,all life buried in the earth over time that locks up the carbon………..
Not on its own. Carbon dioxide floats in the sky because of its low density. As such, it just doesn’t go into rocks. It has to be pumped or trapped there. There are some companies that actually pump C02 back into the ground, but very other things do the same. Edit: Note that I’m assuming that you mean “gas goes into rock, no middle-man”.
