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Sun 27 Mar, 2005 08:44 am
I'm not sure how anyone would measure this, but let's say that when the Earth first formed it was pretty much a molten rock with zero biomass on it (or a negilgible amount if you're thinking about amino acids from asteroids or such). Now of course, the Earth has lots of biomass. But how much? Do we measure this in tons, or in percentage of the total mass of the planet?
The other thing I'm wondering about is the rate of increase of Biomass. For example, did the biomass of the Earth shoot up from zero to a high percentage of its current state, and then level off for billions of years, or had it increased and steadily over time, or did it see a rapid increase at some point in biological history, like when life came onto land, or when multicellular organisms first evolved.
Anyone have any idea on any of this?
Thanks,
I found
this,which helps a little. But I was hoping for a bit more detail.
It looks like Biomass simply exploded when Earth recovered from the Oxygen transition, but the curve just keeps going up. Is there no end in sight? Is it still going up at the same rate?
Unless we narrowly define biomass, it is still increasing, but perhaps slower than in the past. Is limestone biomass? coal? oil? Neil
I believe that non-fossil is part of one definition, but several definitions can be found.
Waldo_ wrote:I believe that non-fossil is part of one definition, but several definitions can be found.
Yes, in the context of my question, I'm more interested in active, living, reproducing biomass, not simply organic material.
The biomass of Earth is approximately 1851.7x10E9 metric tons.
from
http://www.digitalkingdom.org/~rlpowell/rants/simulation_errors.html
The interior of Earth may be cooling. Warming seems unlikely. So micro-organisms may be moving deeper into the crust increasing the biomass. The one degree C warming (and reduced ice) of the Arctic regions (the past 30 years) is likely increasing biomass. The latter may be the reason for negligible carbon dioxide increase. Neil
Yes. I saw this while Googling for info on the subject.
What percentage of the total Earth mass is that number?
But the main thing I'm interested in is the growth rate from zero to now. Is it steady, or goes it have bumps and glitches in it.
This relates slightly to the "complexity" question which was recently posted. One of the main challenges to "complexity" is that it's such a small portion of Biomass. So I was interested in a relationship between biomass growth and the various stages of life on the planet (oxygen bacteria, multi-cellular arrival, animal life, land based life, extinction events, etc). I was hoping to see some type of fluctuation in the biomass increase which might relate somehow to the various stages of complexity of life on the planet.
@rosborne979,
i dont think global biomass can change, because all of the big molecules in our body come from the earth, the iron and heavy things obviously were forged in an exploding star and bombarded to earth a long time ago... but they can be thought of as "from the earth" ... the only mass the earth 'gains' is from meteors/metorites/little stuff in space and big stuff in space, ... think of it like this, the sun isnt feeding mass onto the earth, its energy that the sun sends us and we convert it or change it.... when you burn gasoline in your car the earth doesnt lose or gain wieght... energy was converted without any mass getting lost. i think.
@hackajim,
I think you may have misunderstood the question
@hackajim,
Biomass means living organisms, not organic/carbon molecules.
@rosborne979,
The mass of the earth is approximately 5.98x10E24.
So biomass as a fraction is approximately 3.1x10E-10, or 3 parts in 10 billion.
@jacksawyer,
Where did you get those numbers?
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