State of the Planet

News from the Columbia Climate School

The Carbon Vault

Basaltic rock, Iceland. Photo: K. Allen, 2010
Basaltic rock, Iceland. Photo: K. Allen, 2010

 

The skin of the Earth is the color of tar,

Ridged, freshly healed like the seams of a scar.

Through salt-spattered sky, a gray-winged gull sails;

Steam gently rises, the island exhales.

 

A power plant rests on porous basalt,

In spaces beneath, a dark final vault.

Carbon is cached with a strong crystal lock,

Ashes to ashes, rock back to rock.

 

______________________________________________________

Further reading:

In a First, Iceland Power Plant Turns Carbon Emissions to Stone, K. Krajick, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory

Rapid carbon mineralization for permanent disposal of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions, Matter et al., Science

Scientists Turn Carbon Dioxide Emissions into Stone, Magill, Climate Central

This is one in a series of posts by Katherine Allen, a researcher in geochemistry and paleoclimate at the School of Earth & Climate Sciences at the University of Maine.

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