ENV100Y5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 14: Seafloor Spreading, Greenhouse And Icehouse Earth, Carbon Cycle
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ENV100Y5 Full Course Notes
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It"s critical to life, as it functions on multitude of scale and some of them is a metabolism that is part of the carbon cycle. The largest carbon reservoir is the sedimentary rock. Ocean is the second largest reservoir of carbon. Sources are from the atmosphere (which constantly exchange carbon with the ocean), terrestrial runoff, marine organisms, undersea volcanoes, hydrothermal vents, etc. Carbon cycle functions on multiple timescales: some immediate, some over long terms, etc. Human activities could be affecting the cycle; marine systems and the temperature of the systems; oxygen availability, metabolic rates, etc. > refers to the 15 geological time periods: cambrian, ordovician, silurian, devonian, > mean global temp ~ 6. 2 degrees celsius higher than today. > caused by rapid sea floor spreading; new rocks were being formed which liberated. > no glacial ice; 85% of earth"s surface was water. > high temp triggered a brief ice age; lasted 200,000 years.
