GeologyRocks

I haven't contributed much to our forum lately but I still like to visit from time to time. I do have something to add to Kamina's question.

Peat bogs, coal, oil and methyl hydrate occurrences are what I usually think of as Carbon stores, but Limestone is a great store of carbon too.

The boiling "abundant sulfuric acid running free on the surface", would neutralize the limestone it contacts - and liberate that store of carbon. It is just an additional source of C and Co2 that you might not have thought of.

You're suggesting a good mechanism to recycle this locked up carbon back into the atmosphere. And now I'm wondering if Acid Rain etching at limestones in eastern North America and Europe has contributed in some small way to current carbon build-up...although I've never read this anywhere.

Now, my questions are; why is boiling hot sulfuric acid flowing over the surface? Why did the Earth turn itself inside out?

Mike

Well, that's quite simple really: It's not the earth.Now... Yes, I had thought of limestones and the acid neutralizing them, which is exactly what made me add this question, because this place isn't orbititing a G-type star but an F-one, and perhaps all that limestone carbon going to the atmosphere as CO2 would now evaporate. Carbonic acid doesn't sound very likely considering most of the hydrogen available is either on organisms or on sulfuric acid. And although there's a Carbon dioxide-breathing organism adapted to living in this conditions, I doubt their taking of CO2 from the atmosphere would be enough to preserve it in the planet.

Well the limestone on the surface had to get there somehow, right?  So either the sulfuric acid was not always present or it doesn't completely cover the surface, but perhaps runs in something like rivers?  But you still need lime-creating organisms, and free carbon for them to munch on to create the limestone.  So the acid rivers couldn't flow into an acid ocean.  There would have to be water or some such.  But I'm not sure if any organism could live in 250-350C.  There are those that live in the underwater vents here on earth, and they're pretty hot.  But I'm not sure how hot.

I think basically you'd need a carbon store that wouldn't be affected by the acid.  There just has to be a balance between what is released by this store (like the acid eating the limestone) and what is put into the store (like organisms making the limestone).  The store can be affected either biotically or abiotically.  For abiotically, maybe the acid eats the carbon store up in one area of the world, but the carbon store is also able to freely capture floating carbon and build upon itself in another area.  Such as graphite structures building like stalagmites in a cave or something.  Not really possible, but just throwing the ideas out.