Copper cycle
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The copper cycle is the biogeochemical cycle of natural and anthropogenic exchanges of copper between reservoirs in the hydrosphere, atmosphere, biosphere, and lithosphere. Human mining and extraction activities have exerted large influence on the copper cycle.
The copper cycle is the biogeochemical cycle of natural and anthropogenic exchanges of copper between reservoirs in the hydrosphere, atmosphere, biosphere, and lithosphere. Human mining and extraction activities have exerted large influence on the copper cycle.
Overview
The diagram immediately below shows the global copper reservoirs labeled with sizes in μg/g inside parentheses. The largest copper reservoirs are metal use (production, fabrication, use, discard), the core, and the crust. Fluxes between reservoirs are shown as arrows with units of Gg Cu/yr. The thickness of the arrows represents the flux size. The anthropogenic fluxes are in red and the natural fluxes are in navy blue. The largest fluxes are from copper metal use and soil, between the crust and mantle, and from the freshwater to oceans. The flux of copper from micrometeorites to the atmosphere is difficult to measure, but is relatively constant over time. It is assumed that the rate of cosmic flux is uniform everywhere. The median of all the fluxes post 1980 was used in the figure.
Text derived from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1174054921 under CC BY-SA 4.0; modifications have been made.