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Are Ants the Answer to CO2 Sequestration?
GSA press release ^ | 7/29/2014 | Staff

Posted on 07/30/2014 9:39:08 AM PDT by JimSEA

Boulder, Colo., USA – A 25-year-long study published in GEOLOGY on 14 July provides the first quantitative measurement of in situ calcium-magnesium silicate mineral dissolution by ants, termites, tree roots, and bare ground. This study reveals that ants are one of the most powerful biological agents of mineral decay yet observed. It may be that an understanding of the geobiology of ant-mineral interactions might offer a line of research on how to "geoengineer" accelerated CO2 consumption by Ca-Mg silicates.

Researcher Ronald Dorn of Arizona State University writes that over geological timescales, the dissolution of calcium (Ca) and magnesium (Mg) bearing silicates has led to the graduate drawdown of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) through the accumulation of limestone and dolomite. Many contemporary efforts to sequester CO2 involve burial, with some negative environmental consequences.

(Excerpt) Read more at geosociety.org ...


TOPICS: Science
KEYWORDS: carbondioxide; climate; geology
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This fits well with the other CO2 postings today.
1 posted on 07/30/2014 9:39:09 AM PDT by JimSEA
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To: JimSEA

The best answer to CO2 sequestration is of course ‘why?’


2 posted on 07/30/2014 9:40:24 AM PDT by agere_contra (Hamas has dug miles of tunnels - but no bomb-shelters.)
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To: JimSEA

Don’t you love journalism?

‘Some negative environmental consequences’

You mean, the CO2 bubbling back up through aquifers, making them carbonated (fizzy), and killing all of the animals who try drinking from ponds where the CO2 comes back up? (asphyxiation - CO2 is heavier than air and hugs the floor)

Has anybody EVER considered that you could take a sample of any place on earth near the surface of the earth and measure the CO2 levels. That’s where the CO2 is going to be. If you don’t see an increase there, it isn’t going to appear anywhere else in the air column.

This is why the ocean is an effective absorber of CO2. It hugs the surface of the water, whereupon it can be used by aquatic plant life.

If only there was a shred of science behind CO2 hysteria.


3 posted on 07/30/2014 9:44:44 AM PDT by RinaseaofDs (.)
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To: agere_contra
Exactly! The planet has it handled. There is no "Greenhouse Warming" except in Algore's thick skull.

No smoking hot spot

1. The greenhouse signature is missing. We have been looking and measuring for years, and cannot find it.

Each possible cause of global warming has a different pattern of where in the planet the warming occurs first and the most. The signature of an increased greenhouse effect is a hot spot about 10km up in the atmosphere over the tropics. We have been measuring the atmosphere for decades using radiosondes: weather balloons with thermometers that radio back the temperature as the balloon ascends through the atmosphere. They show no hot spot. Whatsoever.

If there is no hot spot then an increased greenhouse effect is not the cause of global warming. So we know for sure that carbon emissions are not a significant cause of the global warming. If we had found the greenhouse signature then I would be an alarmist again.


4 posted on 07/30/2014 9:46:21 AM PDT by TigersEye ("No man left behind" means something different to 0bama.)
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To: agere_contra

Not the legal act of sequestration but: “”The process of removing carbon from the atmosphere and depositing it in a reservoir.” In this case, it may recommend geoengineering to reduce industrial sources of CO2.


5 posted on 07/30/2014 9:46:59 AM PDT by JimSEA
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To: JimSEA

That would be a colossal waste of money.


6 posted on 07/30/2014 9:50:14 AM PDT by TigersEye ("No man left behind" means something different to 0bama.)
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To: JimSEA

http://www.drroyspencer.com/2014/07/epa-admits-to-senate-that-co2-regs-not-about-pollution-control/

CO2 regs are not about pollution but about forcing people to buy energy efficient appliances.


7 posted on 07/30/2014 9:51:41 AM PDT by mountainlion (Live well for those that did not make it back.)
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To: mountainlion

It has always been my opinion that they took lead out of gasoline in order to destroy the valves in all of the old cars and force everyone to buy new cars. It supported the auto manufacturers and more importantly it supported the banking industry with all of the loans. And it put everyone in perpetual debt.


8 posted on 07/30/2014 9:57:29 AM PDT by TigersEye ("No man left behind" means something different to 0bama.)
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To: JimSEA

DISCLAIMER:

Boulder Colorado is a long know drug refuge and the home of the University of Colorado, a top party school. Colorado legalized drugs recently and published data should be accepted as possibly tainted.


9 posted on 07/30/2014 9:59:20 AM PDT by mountainlion (Live well for those that did not make it back.)
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To: TigersEye

My point would be that there are many means of “engineering” industrial CO2 production controls which are not yet used. Instead, government is limiting and controlling people, business, etc. in order to make it as painful as possible. Control of citizenry is the ultimate goal here.


10 posted on 07/30/2014 10:02:06 AM PDT by JimSEA
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To: TigersEye

Some people have said that the refrigerant changes were because the copyrights were about to run out and US makers sought government help to keep the monopoly.


11 posted on 07/30/2014 10:03:41 AM PDT by mountainlion (Live well for those that did not make it back.)
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To: mountainlion

I really wouldn’t doubt that at all. That would also be another way to make a car obsolete because you couldn’t use the new refrigerant in the old air conditioning units.


12 posted on 07/30/2014 10:06:05 AM PDT by TigersEye ("No man left behind" means something different to 0bama.)
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To: mountainlion

I can’t really relate GSA published material to pot induced hallucinations. But maybe you can. :-)


13 posted on 07/30/2014 10:06:54 AM PDT by JimSEA
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To: JimSEA
the dissolution of calcium (Ca) and magnesium (Mg) bearing silicates

Acid rain does this much better. Maybe a more acidic ocean is a negative feedback.

14 posted on 07/30/2014 10:07:55 AM PDT by Reeses
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To: TigersEye

When the Democrat/progressive/liberal/environmental/money grabbing government achieves all its goals it will become outdated and irrelevant.


15 posted on 07/30/2014 10:08:45 AM PDT by mountainlion (Live well for those that did not make it back.)
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To: Reeses

Not to mention that slightly acidic Monsoon rains falling on the Himalayas may have been what helped to bring us to the geological low atmospheric CO2 levels we now are experiencing. A number of geologists think the ice ages are tied to the rise of the Himalayas.


16 posted on 07/30/2014 10:15:45 AM PDT by JimSEA
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To: JimSEA
Earth's climate has cooled significantly over the past 65 m.y., likely from hydrologic regulation, vegetation change, and interactions related to tectonism, in part mediated by Ca-Mg silicate mineral dissolution

This is in the last paragraph of the article. Ants and the above are supposed to be the key to “climate change”. The sun has cooled 35% lately which would have a greater effect but it seems this guy is hallucinating Ants and Ca-Mg silicate. Would that be bath salts?

17 posted on 07/30/2014 10:19:21 AM PDT by mountainlion (Live well for those that did not make it back.)
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To: JimSEA
I've developed a very sophisticated CO2 sequestration process. I'll sell the patent rights for it to the government for $10 billion.


18 posted on 07/30/2014 10:20:57 AM PDT by Flick Lives ("I can't believe it's not Fascism!")
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To: mountainlion

I’m one of those in the “all of the above” group. I doubt we know enough about the whole (climate) to separate out any one item and say it is THE cause. Of course it is a composite and the interactions among the many factors.


19 posted on 07/30/2014 10:30:19 AM PDT by JimSEA
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To: JimSEA
I’m one of those in the “all of the above” group

Me to. The sun supplies about half the heat to the earth. Radioactive decay in the core of the earth supplies about half also. CO2 concentration is about 0.0383% by volume (383 ppmv) or 0.0582% by weigh the atmosphere so how can it be the controlling factor?

20 posted on 07/30/2014 10:47:46 AM PDT by mountainlion (Live well for those that did not make it back.)
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