cycles

The Carbon atom is the basic matter-building element of our world. Carbon is the most common element on the land and at the bottom of the sea. Only the elements of the atmosphere are more numerous. In this rather less entertaining tale, you will be taken through a power plant's boiler, miles into the earth's crust, though an animals digestive system, and through the endless tubes of a plant.

Our friend the carbon atom is located in an animal where it is digested from the animal's dinner and is used by the animals digestive system and released from the body through feces and returned to the soil. A tree sucks it up through the root system to be used by the tree to make sugars and then store them in the wood to make the tree taller. The tree grew until it died and fell where it was covered with organic matter and compressed until it became peat. Over time, the peat was compressed and turned into bitomus coal. As more and more matter piled up on top of the coal it again changed into a new hard form of coal called anthracite. The coal and the carbon molecule were mined out by miners and shipped to a power plant where it is combusted by the power plant's boilers and the ash created by combustion is dumped into a deep pit where part of the cycle starts over, and the ash that escaped along with our friend the carbon molecule is released into the atmosphere by mixing with oxygen to make carbon dioxide. Plants absorb the carbon dioxide and the oxygen is released by the stomates of the plant. The plant, to help make it grow, uses the carbon and the entire cycle starts over again....