Long-term Carbon Cycle

Question 1

What is the long-term carbon cycle?

Answer 1

A giant system a slow-moving carbon around the globe

Question 2

How long does the long-term carbon cycle take?

Answer 2

Between 100 to 200 million years for carbon to move through it

Question 3

What is the product of CO2 and water vapour?

Answer 3

Carbonic acid (acid rain)

Question 4

What are the affects of acid rain?

Answer 4

Carbonic acid reacts with minerals in rocks causing chemical weathering

Question 5

What happens when minerals are weathered?

Answer 5

Some carbon is released back into the atmosphere and some into the hydrosphere (oceans)

Question 6

What happens to carbon when it enters the ocean?

Answer 6

It goes into shells and skeletons as calcium carbonate

Question 7

What happens when organisms die in the ocean?

Answer 7

They sink to the floor and compact down and make sedimentary rock like limestone. Heat and pressure turns it into fossil fuels

Question 8

How does carbon return to the surface at plate margins?

Answer 8

Destructive plate margins move together and heat melts the plates and the carbon is released and goes back into the atmosphere (volcanoes)