carbon

• in solar-energy reactions

41:8.1In those suns which are en­cir­cuited in the space-en­ergy chan­nels, so­lar en­ergy is lib­er­ated by var­i­ous com­plex nu­clear-re­ac­tion chains, the most com­mon of which is the hy­dro­gen-car­bon-he­lium re­ac­tion. In this meta­mor­pho­sis, car­bon acts as an en­ergy cat­a­lyst since it is in no way ac­tu­ally changed by this pro­cess of con­vert­ing hy­dro­gen into he­lium. Un­der cer­tain con­di­tions of high tem­per­a­ture the hy­dro­gen pen­e­trates the car­bon nu­clei. Since the car­bon can­not hold more than four such pro­tons, when this sat­u­ra­tion state is at­tained, it be­gins to emit pro­tons as fast as new ones ar­rive. In this re­ac­tion the in­go­ing hy­dro­gen par­ti­cles come forth as a he­lium atom.

• early c. consumed by prolific plant life

57:7.8Much of the car­bon of the at­mo­sphere was ab­stracted to form the car­bon­ates of the var­i­ous met­als which abounded in the su­per­fi­cial lay­ers of the planet. Later on, much greater quan­ti­ties of these car­bon gases were con­sumed by the early and pro­lific plant life.

• dark shale or slate indicates presence of organic

58:7.10Some of the up­per lay­ers of these tran­si­tion rock de­posits con­tain small amounts of shale or slate of dark col­ors, in­di­cat­ing the pres­ence of or­ganic car­bon and tes­ti­fy­ing to the ex­is­tence of the an­ces­tors of those forms of plant life which over­ran the earth dur­ing the suc­ceed­ing Car­bonif­er­ous or coal age. Much of the cop­per in these rock lay­ers re­sults from wa­ter de­po­si­tion. Some is found in the cracks of the older rocks and is the con­cen­trate of the slug­gish swamp wa­ter of some an­cient shel­tered shore line. The iron mines of North Amer­ica and Eu­rope are lo­cated in de­posits and ex­tru­sions ly­ing partly in the older un­strat­i­fied rocks and partly in these later strat­i­fied rocks of the tran­si­tion pe­ri­ods of life for­ma­tion.