According to the website Askabiologist of Arizona State University (USA), if Oxygen accounts for more than 65% of the human body mass, Carbon accounts for 18.5%.
Along with Oxygen, Carbon is considered an element of life because they create compounds essential for life, including Carbohydrates, Lipids (fats), Proteins (proteins) and Nucleic Acids (which make up DNA and RNA). .
96% of the human body is made up of 4 main elements: Oxygen, Carbon, Hydrogen and Nitrogen. Source: Askabiologist/Arizona State University (USA).
All these elements (Oxygen, Carbon, Hydrogen, Nitrogen…) are present in the food we eat every day. They are also found in oceans, rocks and other life forms. Carbon alone – the element born from the explosion of stars – is essential for all life forms and so it is not surprising that 90% of the Carbon on Earth is underground.
Even National Geographic has shown that the total carbon content of bacteria and microorganisms that thrive deep underground is 700 times more than the total amount of Carbon inside the body of 7.7 billion people living in the world. live in the world today.
One of the planet’s largest ecosystems lies deep beneath the earth’s surface, one of the discoveries from the decades-long Deep Carbon Observatory (DCO) project . DCO brings together 1,200 international experts and researchers from 55 countries with the goal of discovering living activities deep in the Earth’s earth.
“To date, we have broken many of the basics about our planet from the Earth’s biosphere and geospatial systems. It’s a complex and interconnected system.” , DCO Executive Director Robert Hazen of the Carnegie Institute of Science (USA) said.
Over the past decade, DCO has launched 268 projects and conducted 1,400 studies. National Geographic has reviewed the amazing highlights of life underground; its role in the early Earth; and give warnings for the future Earth.
Carbon from plants and animals goes deep into the earth through subduction, a process when oceanic plates sink beneath continental plates over hundreds of millions of years.
After sinking underground at different depths, Carbon returns to the ground in the form of diamonds, rocks, CO2 emissions from volcanoes…
One of 31 new carbon-containing minerals discovered by DCO in Chile. (Photo: JOY DESOR, MINERALANALYTIK ANALYTICAL SERVICES).
In other words, like us, the Earth is constantly “eating” and “emitting” Carbon, usually in the form of Carbon dioxide (CO 2 ). However, this natural and stable Carbon cycle has been interrupted by human intervention.
We force Carbon back into the ground by digging up and burning huge amounts of Hydrocarbons: Oil, Gas and Coal. At the same time, deforestation, construction of cities and roads … have weakened our planet’s ability to “eat” carbon.
Disruption of the Carbon Cycle has caused what we call the climate crisis . Climate change poses an existential threat to humanity, not in the distant future but in the next generation or two.
Human activities have partly caused the climate crisis. (Illustration).
Over the next 20 to 40 years, CO2 emissions from fossil fuels must be eliminated, and large amounts of CO2 already in the atmosphere need to be ‘cleaned up’ to prevent the increasing levels of global warming that are occurring. This is very dangerous, says Robert Hazen.
The DCO project also fosters optimism about the possibility of extraterrestrial life.
According to the analysis of scientists, pure diamonds are made of Carbon, but most contain small impurities. For researchers, these impurities are invaluable. These impurities, known as inclusions, have revealed “abiotic” methane – an energy source for life deep underground.
When water meets the mineral Olivin , under strong pressure, Olivin turns into another mineral, Serpentin (a common rock-forming mineral) and produces “abiotic” methane.
The fact that microorganisms and bacteria deep underground can use chemical energy [from the process of rocking under extreme heat and extreme pressure to produce “abiotic” methane on Earth, the process is similar. The same can happen on planets other than Earth. Because Olivin is also found in meteorites, on the Moon, on Mars.
Primordial life probably originated and developed underground. (Photo: Gaetan Borgonie/SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE).
The discovery also suggests that primordial life may have originated and developed in the earth’s crust , rather than in the ocean, as many scholars believe.
Diamonds also provide DCO researchers with evidence that there is more water deep underground than we thought. They are mainly locked in the way mineral crystals are in the form of ions rather than liquid water in the oceans, rivers and lakes on land. Like Carbon, the subduction of large plates of continents and oceans is thought to have driven water deep into the Earth’s interior – Jesse Ausubel, Director and Senior Research Fellow of the Human and Environment Program of Rockefeller University (USA) and former Vice President of Programs at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation (USA).
The DCO projects monitoring gases emitted by volcanoes resulted in the first detection of a change in the ratio of CO 2 emissions to Sulfur dioxide (SO 2 ) before the eruptions of the volcanoes in Costa Rica. potential early warning system.
Dr. Sami Mikhail of the University of St. Andrew (UK) said, there has long been a theory that the ratio of gases may change before the volcano erupts, but the DCO’s findings allow us to investigate and investigate further.
Several volcanoes are near densely populated areas, including the Tungurahua stratovolcano (dubbed Ecuador’s “Fire Throat”); Europe’s highest active volcano Etna in Italy); and the Soufriere Hills stratovolcano in Montserrat (Caribbean Sea) are currently being closely monitored.
“Fire Throat” Tungurahua of Ecuador. (Photo: Quasarex).
These three large volcanoes and many other active volcanoes on Earth are sources of CO2 emissions into the atmosphere. Many climatologists still blame volcanoes as a source of greenhouse gas emissions that accelerate global warming. However, this natural amount of CO2 is still a very small fraction of what humans burn fossil fuels.
Earth in the 21st century is facing many problems related to climate and environment. The indiscriminate exploitation of resources, the burning of forests, the burning of fossil fuels, the replacement of trees by urban areas, the widespread plastic waste… are all painful problems born of human activities.
Instead of blaming each other and blaming nature, people should act to change and to save themselves.