Mind Over Matter
Registered Senior Member
Why, or why not?
Are the nutrients on the earth a renewable resource?
- Thread starter Mind Over Matter
- Start date
Can you be specific as to which ones you are asking about.
gordongekko
Registered Member
No because the sun will burn out someday.
Yes because oil is recreated over hundreds of thousands of years.
It's about perspective
Yes because oil is recreated over hundreds of thousands of years.
It's about perspective
Mind Over Matter
Registered Senior Member
I think I should start out by telling you my initial thought on this. Nutrients and minerals necessary to communities and ecosystems must be continously recycled. These biogeochemical cycles involves transformation of elements from inorganic to organic forms usable by many populations in the community and back again. Specific types of microorganisms are needed to convert many nutrients from one form to another.
Mind Over Matter
Registered Senior Member
The sun is the primary energy source for most surface ecosystem. Photosynthesis captures this energy, which can be used for carbon fixation by producer populations.No because the sun will burn out someday.
Yes because oil is recreated over hundreds of thousands of years.
It's about perspective
Everything and everyone is finite. The recycling process can only go on for so long before it eventually comes to an end and entropy happens.
The only thing we lose as a planet is water, through dissociation of oxygen and hydrogen and the loss of the hydrogen through the solar wind. Everything else is recycled. The various recycling effects are driven by solar heat and light - so as long as we have that we can recycle effectively forever.
Not only are they a renewable resource, but if they failed to be so, we would not exist much longer.
Is this a homework question?
Is this a homework question?
Mind Over Matter
Registered Senior Member
No, it's not.
Most nutrients, atleast in the biological sense are renuable bcoz the biogeochemical cycles, like the carbon cycle, recycle elements and insects>microbes>plants recycle the nutrients whole, using the energy of the sun.