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Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry; January 2001; v. 43;1; p. 555-578; DOI: 10.2138/gsrmg.43.1.555
© 2001 Mineralogical Society of America
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Isotopic Evolution of the Biogeochemical Carbon Cycle During the Precambrian

David J. Des Marais

Exobiology Branch, Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California 94035

The first 20% of the full text of this article appears below.


   INTRODUCTION
 
Carbon is highly important for our biosphere, not just because it forms organic compounds; it also creates atmospheric greenhouse gases, pH buffers in seawater, and redox buffers virtually everywhere. Carbon species can stabilize metamorphic minerals and they can affect plutonism and volcanism. These various C constituents all interact via the biogeochemical C cycle, an array of C reservoirs linked by a network of physical, chemical and biological processes. The overall C cycle actually consists of multiple nested cyclic pathways that differ with respect to some of their reservoirs and processes (Fig. 1Go). However, all pathways ultimately pass through the hydrosphere and atmosphere, and it is this common course that unites the entire carbon cycle and allows even its most remote constituents to influence our environment and biosphere.


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  		Figure 1. Biogeochemical C cycle, showing principal C reservoirs (boxes) in the mantle, crust, oceans and atmosphere, and showing the processes (arrows) that unite these reservoirs. The range of each of these reservoir boxes along the horizontal axis gives a visual estimate of {delta}13C values most typical of each reservoir. The vertical bars at right indicate the timeframes within which C typically completely traverses each of the four C sub-cycles (the HAB, SED, MET and MAN sub-cycles, see text). For example, C can traverse the hydrosphere-atmosphere-biosphere (HAB) sub-cycle typically in the time scale between 0 to 1000 years.

 
The history of the biogeochemical C cycle has been at least partially recorded in the C isotopic composition ({delta}13CPDB) of carbonate ({delta}carb) and reduced C ({delta}org) in ancient sedimentary and metamorphic rocks. To the extent that sedimentary rocks avoided deep burial and alteration, they have preserved information that indicates the status of the C cycle at the time of their deposition.


   THE PRESENT-DAY CARBON CYCLE
 
The C cycle can be represented as an integrated system of . . . [Full Text of this Article]




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