A Sea of Carbon

Abstract

There is more to the sea than what you can see! Did you know that when you swim in the sea, you are actually swimming in a soup of carbon? The ocean has many carbon-containing things. Some are large like fish, whales, and shells, but most of them are too small to be seen unless we use microscopes. Some of these minuscule particles are living organisms, while the rest are their remains as they decompose. When land creatures die, they decompose into soil. In the ocean, creature remains are gradually dissolved in seawater. All this dead material contains the element carbon, which, at some point in time, was carbon dioxide in the air. The ocean stores a large portion of the carbon on our planet. In this article, we explain how all this carbon ends up in the ocean and how human activities affect the carbon cycle in the sea.