Carbon burial

A small fraction (less than 1%) of the fixed carbon produced by photosynthesis is buried and physically removed from any potential reaction with oxygen (until the buried material is brought to the surface - at a much later time). Thus, the oxygen in our contemporary atmosphere is the consequence of many millions of years of fixed carbon burial. More details on this topic can be found in Chapters 8 and 11. 

Stallard, R. F. (1998). Terrestrial sedimentation and the carbon cycle Coupling weathering and erosion to carbon burial. Glob. Biogeochem. Cycles 12, 231-252. 

Fig. 4.14. Tracing climate change in the Miocene. Shown here are records of ice volume and temperature (based on foraminiferal S 0) and relative organic carbon burial (based on foraminiferal S C), compared with the CO2 estimates of Pagani et al. (1999), and tectonic events that may have affected ocean heat transport. Trends in CO2 are consistent with organic carbon burial and CO2 drawdown during the Monterey Excursion, but cannot explain the Miocene Climatic Optimum (MCO) or expansion of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS).

Einsele, G., Yan, J., Hinderer, M. 2001. Atmospheric carbon burial in modern lake basins and its significance for the global carbon budget. Global and Planetary Change, 30, 167-195. 

Table 25.1 Organic Carbon Burial Rates Regimes (Pg C/y). in Different Marine Sediment ...

Sediment Type Location Carbon Burial % of Total... 

Continental shelves and slopes comprise approximately 10 percent of the Earth s surface, and contain over half the sediments in the ocean (Heezen and Tharp, 1965 Gregor, 1985). Recent estimates of marine carbonate burial rates (e.g., Hay and Southam, 1977 Sundquist, 1985) indicate that between about 35 to 70 percent of Holocene carbonate deposition has taken place on continental shelves. In spite of their importance for carbonate accumulation and the global CO2 cycle, relatively few studies have been made on the chemical controls of calcium carbonate accumulation in these sediments, and most of these studies have been confined to near-shore environments. 

Figure 10.43. Results of model calculations of the carbonate-silicate geochemical cycle illustrated in Figure 10.42. The corresponding changes in atmospheric CO2 and temperature during the last 100 million years are evident. Notice how organic carbon burial may play a strong role as a negative feedback mechanism for a perturbation in atmospheric CO2 driven by tectonics. (After Lasaga et al., 1985.)...

Arthur M.A., Dean W.E. and Pratt L.M. (1988) Geochemical and climatic effects of increased marine organic carbon burial at the Cenomanian/Turonian boundary. Nature 335, 714-717. 

Volk T. (1989b) Sensitivity of climate and atmosheric CO2 to deep-ocean and shallow-ocean carbonate burial. Nature 337, 637-640. 

The major modes of nitrogen losses from the Bay of Bengal are sedimentary denitrification and burial. Note that the estimate for sedimentary denitrification (3 Tg N year ) is based on only one measurement at the outer shelf off Chennai (Naik, 2003), while the burial in sediments was computed from the carbon burial using a C N value of 10. 

Figure 2 The eumulative fraction of carbon burial and the respiration pathways as a function of depth in the oeean derived from the global diagenesis model of Archer et al. (2002) (after Archer et aL, 2002).

Emeis K.-C., Doose H., Mix A., and Schulz-Bull D. (1995b) Alkenone sea-surface temperatures and carbon burial at Site 846 (eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean) the last 1.3 MY. Sci. Res. ODP 138, 605-613. 

FranceLanord C. and Derry E. A. (1997) Organic carbon burial forcing of the carbon cycle from Himalayan erosion. Nature 390(6655), 65-67. 

Lyle M. (1988) Climatically forced organic carbon burial in the equatorial Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Nature 335, 529-532. 

---