[Terrapreta] Dinosaur Carbon

[Sean K. Barry]

Hi Tom,

I think prehistoric times did have more standing biomass, as is evidenced by the large fossil fuel reserves in the first place.  I think also, that given enough time, an increase in atmospheric carbon would lead over time to more biomass growth of photosynthetic plants first and  future growth of life forms that depended on plants for food.  But this could take quite some time and might only be possible with certain small fluxes in CO2 increase.

It is possible that we have consumed, oxidized, and released as CO2 emissions half (by some estimates more than half) of the original fossil fuel reserves, which originally took eons to develop circa 300-400 million years ago.  We have done this in the last 150 years or so.  This kind of increase in CO2 concentration may be unprecedented and it's nature has certainly been associated with dramatic climate changing events in history.

I don't see that the vegetative species set currently on the planet just can keep up with the current human induced increases in CO2 from the emissions of oxidized fossil fuel carbon.  If they could, then there would be no observable increases.

Regards,

SKB
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Tom Miles<mailto:tmiles at trmiles.com> 
  To: 'Terra Preta'<mailto:terrapreta at bioenergylists.org> 
  Sent: Sunday, April 20, 2008 12:02 AM
  Subject: [Terrapreta] Dinosaur Carbon


  If the carbon that was converted to oil and coal was once part of vegetation above ground why does it create a problem to bring it out of the ground now? Isn't it all part of the same inventory? Was there more vegetation in prehistoric times? Why can't "dinosaur" carbon just create more vegetation when it is oxidized?

   

  Tom

   

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