Geology Reference
In-Depth Information
A great downwelling tongue of water carries you into the ocean deeps along with
many other oxygen brothers gleaned and dissolved from the air. Feel the immense
cold tranquility of the deep ocean as you gradually approach the sediments.
(To 'iron-phosphorus burial'): You sense the dark, oozing mud engulfing you as
the cold water finally delivers you to the sediments. Total darkness surrounds you.
A nearby iron molecule awakens to your presence, and with great excitement links
you and itself to a nearby phosphate ion, preventing its escape into the eager cur-
rents of sea water that constantly brush the top layer of sediments.
(To' phosphate'): You become one of the few phosphate ions that have managed
to escape the ardent attentions of the iron and oxygen beings in the sediments.
You settle at the surface of the sediments in the dark gloomy depths of the ocean,
a precious but scarce essential nutrient.
(To 'photosynthesis by oceanic algae'): Powerful ocean currents carry you up-
wards towards the sunlit regions of the sea. Here, myriads of tiny light-loving be-
ings seek to devour you. Soon, a passing diatom engulfs you and you become all
of the marine algae floating in the sunlit regions of Gaia's oceans. You feel the
intense hunger of all your tiny photosynthetic beings as growth and reproduction
are greatly diminished in the phosphorus-poor waters.
(To 'marine organic carbon burial'): You transform into the dark sediments at the
bottom of the ocean. The rain of dead algal bodies reaching you from the upper
sunlit regions of the sea has greatly decreased because of the lack of phosphorus.
You miss the gentle touch of their arrival on your murky surface.
(To 'oxygen in the air'): You become a rare oxygen molecule released into the
air by a photosynthesiser that soaked up sun and a few scarce phosphate ions at
the ocean surface during its brief life before it was buried in the sediments. Sense
how the air is less crowded now with oxygen brothers. Many have been consumed
in chemical marriages with organic carbon exposed on the mountain slopes, and
with sulphur and other gases released by volcanoes. The great self-regulatory
dance has reduced oxygen in the air.
Now quickly travel once more around the journey to experience how it prevents
a calamitous oxygen decline. Becoming Gaia, you sense the diminished oxygen in
