Last pages of the manuscript Geobiology

Left page: [Quotations from the Bible (see transcription of the manuscript) and 2 D version of a 3 D tetrahedron or triangular pyramid, to depict the oxidation and reduction of carbon and nitrogen compounds.]

Joshua speaks to the tribes of Joseph (Joshua 17:18) but the mountain shall be thine; for it is a wood and thou shalt cut it down: and the outgoings of it shall be thine.1

Genesis 1:28 Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it.2

1:29 I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth.

Jabal, the first nomad Genesis 4:20.3

Genesis 6:7 I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; [both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air;] for it repenteth me that I have made them.

Noah: Genesis 9:2 About the animals. “Into your hand are they delivered.”4 Solomon was quite a biologist: 1 Kings 5:33.5

Psalm 8:5 For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour. 8:6. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet.

Proverbs 30:25 The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their food in the summer; 30:26. Conies; 30:27. Locusts.6

Isaiah 7:11 Then said I, Lord, how long? And he answered, Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate.7

Isaiah 24:5 The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof.

Isaiah 35:8 And a highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called The way of holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it; but it shall be for those: the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein.

Isaiah 60:13 The glory of Lebanon shall come unto thee, the fir tree, the pine tree, and the box together, to beautify the place of my sanctuary; and I will make the place of my feet glorious.

Ezekiel 27 The riches of Tyrus.8

Right page: [Very rough calculation of carbon/CO2 content in the atmosphere, hydrosphere and lithosphere.]9

Harvest hectare 30 tons grass is 20 tons. Hay is C6H10O5 = 72/162 C. [Harvest/hectare is] 1440/162 tons C. [= 8.9 tons C/Ha = ±9 tons C/Ha.] 9 tons C /Ha = 9000 kg C/Ha = ±1 kg C/m2. [1 kg C/m2 =] 44/12 kg CO2/m2 = 3.5 kg CO2/m2. Over the entire cont[inent].

1 kg CO2/m2 = 10 g CO2/cm2 = 10/44 × 22.4 Litres 0,5 Litres CO2. 0.232 kg O2per cm3 in atmosphere.

pO2 = 0.206; pCO2 = 0.0003 per cm3 in atmosphere therefore

3/2060 × 44/22 × 232 kg CO2/cm3 = 44/20,600 = 2/1000 = 0.002 kg CO2/cm3 = 2 grams CO2/litre. How is this possible?

6 ½ kg CO2/cm3 fixed in basic oxides, 1 kg in caustobiolith.

Weathering fixes 250-500 g O2/cm3. Total O2 fixation 0.5 – 0.8 kg O2/cm3 ≏ 12/30 kg C/cm3 = 0.18 – 0.29 kg C/cm3. (fossil) divided over 170 kg sediment = 0.17% C in sediments, which is plausible.

160 kg volcanic rock weathered, forming 155 sediments + 10.17 culite + 4.37 dolomite (6.56 kg CO2 necessary). All are from volcanic action.

Hydrosphere 30 × CO2 as atmosphere (Pearle 6,400 km3).10

Lithosphere 16 km [follows a calculation of the volume of the lithosphere.]

Volume lithosphere 81.57 × 109 km3.

Lithosphere Clarke (1916). CO2 0.35%, C = 0.04%, S.G. 2.8.

16 km deep per cm3. 1,600,000 cc, 1.6 × 106 cc = 1.6 × 2.8 × 106 g = 4.5 × 106 g, thus 0.35% CO2, or 35 × 4.5 × 100 g = 15.75 kg CO2 and 1.8 kg C/. [or 0.0098 mg CO2/cm3 and 0.0011 mg C/cm3]

 

1
   Joshua 17:18 in the King James Bible version.
2
   Genesis 1:28 and 29 in the King James Bible version.
3
   And Adah bore Jabal: he was the father of such as dwell in tents, and of such as have cattle. Genesis 4:20 King James Bible version.
4
   Genesis 9:2 in the King James Bible version: And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered.
5
   Reference to 1 Kings 4:33: And he spake of trees, from the cedar tree that is in Lebanon even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall: he spake also of beasts, and of fowl, and of creeping things, and of fishes.
6
   Reference to Proverbs 31:25, 26 and 27, but the quotes are from Proverbs 30:26 and 30:27 in the King James Bible version: The conies are but a feeble folk, yet make they their houses in the rocks; The locusts have no king, yet go they forth all of them by bands.
7
   Reference to Isaiah 7:11, the quote however is from Isaiah 6:11.
8
   Baas Becking probably referred to Ezekiel 27.
In the Utrecht prison Baas Becking shared a cell with Professor Victor H. Rutgers. In the biographical sketch of Rutgers he wrote:
I wrote about a city as an organism, with its energy production. He gave me to read Ezekiel 27, which describes the riches of Tyrus and when I spoke of the devastation that man is doing on earth, he showed me places from Isaiah, and we thought of the anciently destroyed land of Palestine and read the words of the prophet from my English bible: “The Earth is defiled by the inhabitants thereof.” [Translated from Dutch AJPR]
Gaay Fortman (1946, p. 51-52).
9
   Baas Becking made very rough calculations of the global yearly harvest production in kg CO2 /m2. He made an estimate of CO2 content in the atmosphere and compares that with CO2 fixing by weathering and the formation of carbonic acid in ocean surface waters. He further gave an estimate of CO2 in the hydrosphere, without a calculation. In the last part of the page, he made an estimate of the CO2 and C content in the lithosphere. In his calculation he did not take the biosphere and the cycles of organic compounds of carbon into account. Baas Becking’s calculations give the impression of simple pastime, a game of numbers. It is not a serious attempt to reliably depict the global carbon cycle. For more recent and reliable data see Romankevich and Vetrov (2013, Masses of Carbon in the Earth’s Hydrosphere).
10
   Clarke (1916).