38.2: Carbon burial
- Page ID
- 22837
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What must happen next is for plant biomass to be built up through photosynthesis and then buried under sediment before it gets a chance to rot or burn.
Consider this diagram, which highlights some of the fluxes (flows) between the atmosphere, plants, and layers of sedimentary rock. Plants pull \(\ce{CO2}\) from the atmosphere and release \(\ce{O2}\) as a waste product. The \(\ce{O2}\) will eventually react with the plant carbon through decomposition, unless the plant matter is buried. Once buried, it is isolated from free oxygen; it cannot decompose. Its carbon then becomes part of sedimentary rocks, and is locked in the geosphere until uplift (often, mountain-building) brings it back into contact with atmospheric oxygen. This allows it to be weathered (re-oxidized).
What is the impact on the atmosphere of this natural carbon sequestration? It all depends on the timescale over which the carbon remains isolated from the atmosphere, deep in the crust. For our purposes, it makes sense to consider timescales of tens to hundreds of millions of years.