Reservoirs of Inorganic Carbon
- Inorganic carbon can be found in the abiotic world as:
- carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (taken in by plants through photosynthesis and returned back into the atmosphere by consumers through respiration)
- carbonate or hydrogen carbonate dissolved in water, which can be combined with calcium to produce calcium carbonate (used by living things to create shells or other hard structures, which usually ends up as sediment)
- Carbon from the ocean can be released back into the atmosphere through geological uplift forcing carbon trapped in rocks back into the surface to be used by plants or through volcanic activity
- coal, petroleum or natural gas (fossil fuels) found in Earth’s crust
- dead organic matter ie. humus
- carbonate rocks formed from discarded shells or bones of living things ie. limestone (acid rain allows for limestone to return back into the atmosphere as carbon)