Quote:
Originally Posted by redpoint5
To continue the hijacked tangent thought; that means carbon in dead plant matter is only sequestered long-term if it somehow immediately gets buried, is deprived of oxygen, and never decomposes? That means fossil fuels are the extremely small portion of previous plant / animal matter that expired, but did not decompose, and instead was subjected to high pressure without oxygen?
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Or ... if the decomposition does not run 100% complete all the Carbon back out to the surface .. which is what actually happens .. it isn't 100% surface back to surface.
For example:
#1> If it were 100% there would never be any production of 'new' soil .. soil amounts would only be static or lost .. That isn't the case .. there are places that produce more soil .. the decomposed plant/animal carbon did not all end up immediately returned back up .. it just gets buried deeper and deeper by more and more layers of new soil on top of older new soil.
#2> There is the carbon of dead animals and plants that fall to the very bottom of the ocean .. down where there isn't light from the surface .. further down than any surface fish swims ... extremely low levels of oxygen .. that carbon doesn't normally come back up to the surface in the normal decomposition cycle alone .. that carbon gets back up eventually long term from volcanic vents , eruptions , or it gets subducted under another continental plate .. to eventually long time later get released something else .. geysers , volcanoes , etc.
etc.
I don't have the exact % you asked for .. but it is not 0% .. and it is not 100% .. neither of those would agree with the world we see.