BY DR. JOSE PALU-AY DACUDAO
IT IS hypothesized that CO2 levels may have dropped to below 200 parts per million.
(Note: Documented CO2 atmospheric studies began in March of 1958 in Mona Loa Observatory in Hawaii, a weather station of the U.S. Weather Bureau, and since then all over the world. The measurement was 315 ppm in 1957. It has been hypothesized that CO2 pre-industrial level was 280 parts per million, but this is not documented by concrete measurements. In my opinion it’s safest to assume a pre-industrial figure of slightly below the 315 ppm in 1957. In any case, CO2 levels during the Carboniferous may have reached levels lower than that of recent pre-industrial times.)
In contrast, oxygen level is hypothesized to have reached 30%. In our modern times O2 is just at 21%.
It is hypothesized that the high abundance of atmospheric oxygen allowed arthropods to attain enormous sizes. The most famous examples are giant dragonfly-like insects. Arthropods, such as insects, do not have lungs similar to ours, and instead obtain oxygen through holes and tubings (their tracheal system) in their bodies. Oxygen diffuses through their tracheal system. Therefore, they cannot grow to large sizes as they cannot effectively pump in oxygen, which our lungs, which act as bellows, do for us.
The above process of coalification is a type of carbonization. Coalification usually takes millions of years.
However, there are other ways of carbonization, that can be done nearly instantaneously as compared to coalification. Charring or pyrolysis taken to the extreme is also carbonization. It is also an exergonic process, which means it gives off heat energy, and thus once started tends to proceed by itself. We can easily watch this process happen when we char wood and other plant material. Once started, charring proceeds by itself until most of the wood had been turned into charcoal, which is mostly elemental carbon.
(Charcoal is uling in Hiligaynon and Karay-a. I personally call coal uling-duta or uling-lupa.)
Now elemental carbon is also extremely inert and hard to combust. Notice that whenever organic material is burned, some of it nearly always get charred into soot, which is just elemental carbon in powdery form, and tiny pieces of charcoal.
Charring occurs massively all over the world whenever organic material is burned en masse, naturally in wildfires or deliberately. in both cases, huge amounts of elemental carbon is sequestered into the soil. Since elemental carbon is so inert, it tends to stay there for centuries.
Is this bad?
Certainly not.
The carbonization of organic matter not only fixes atmospheric carbon dioxide, it also results in a type of soil that, because of its high carbon content, easily retains water and minerals better and is prevented from acidification.
The famous terra preta of the Amazon is an example of carbonized soil. The slash and burn methods of ancient Amazon peoples in present-day Brazil has admixed huge quantities of elemental carbon into the soil centuries ago.
There are indications that even without further slash and burn processes, terra preta soil seems to be spreading. How can this be? What’s the new source of element carbon in the soil?
I can only speculate that since carbonization is an exergonic process, once it starts in underground conditions the excess heat tends to carbonize more buried organic material. This process may actually be happening in peat bogs and other soils rich in carbon. But this is just all speculation, and needs experiments for verification. (To be continued)/PN
