Sulfur Cycle

Sulfur

A bright yellow in color element that has a really bad smell; man has been using this element for thousands of years. Found near volcanoes and hot springs.

Sulfur Cycle

Sulfur circulates through the biosphere and much of it is stored underground, in rocks and minerals like sulfate and salts, buried deep under ocean sediments

Sulfur

A bright yellow in color element that has a really bad smell; man has been using this element for thousands of years. Found near volcanoes and hot springs.

Sulfur Cycle

Sulfur circulates through the biosphere and much of it is stored underground, in rocks and minerals like sulfate and salts, buried deep under ocean sediments

How does sulfur enter the atmosphere

Can enter several natural sources; Hydrogen sulfide is released from active volcanoes and from active volcanoes and from organic matter in flooded swamps, bogs, and tidal flats broken down by anaerobic decomposers

Sulfur Dioxide

Also known as SO2 and is a colorless and suffocating gas; also comes from volcanoes.

Sulfate particles

Particles of sulfate, SO4-2, salts such as ammonium sulfate, enter the atmosphere from sea spray, dust storms, and forest fires. Plants absorb it and incorporate it essentially for many proteins.

Products of marine algae

Has large amounts of volatile dimethyl sulfide, or DMS-tiny droplets of it serve as nuclei for condensation of water into droplets found in clouds. They can affect cloud cover and climate.

DMS in atmosphere

It is converted to sulfur dioxide, some of which in turn is converted to sulfur trioxide gas and to tiny droplets of sulfuric acid.

What else happens to DMS

It also reacts with other atmospheric chemicals such as ammonia to produce tiny particles of sulfate salts. They then fall as components of acid deposition, which can harm trees/aquatic life.

What happens in oxygen-deficient environments?

In environments of flooded soils, freshwater wetlands, and tidal flats, special bacteria convert sulfate to sulfide-then can react with metal ions & form insoluble metallic sulfides, deposited as rock, and cycle continues

Human Affect on sulfur cycle

We do this by adding sulfur dioxide in three ways:
-Burn coal /oil with sulfur in it for electric power
-Refine petroleum with sulfur in it to make gas, heating oil, etc

Last human affect on sulfur cycle

We do so by converting metallic_mineral ores into free metals such as copperlead and zinc_an activity that releases large amounts of sulfur dioxide into the environment