ABSTRACT
Weathering is the action of the elements causing disintegration. It is essential to understanding the journeys of carbon dioxide in nature over the eons. It involves the long-term interplay between sources and sinks that stabilizes or disrupts the legacy of carbon dioxide. Chemical weathering understandably must depend on the availability of water. Weathering can be slow, depending on temperature, composition, humidity, grain size, and rock fracturing. Mechanical weathering from freeze—thaw cycles of water itself also contributes to shattering rock structures in cooler terrestrial regions. Jacques-Joseph Ebelman can legitimately be recognized as the founder of weathering geoscience. Jacques Ebelman became aware of the need for a near-equilibrium relationship between carbon dioxide draw down by silicate weathering and its release by volcanic activity. This chapter shows in volcanic phenomena the principal cause that restores carbon dioxide to the atmosphere that is removed by the decomposition of rocks.
