There are many elements vital to sustaining life. These elements, like energy itself, and not created or destroyed, but transfered from form to form and travel through cycles in the environment. Such elements include phosphorus which cycles through forms and life and is used and wasted and restored over and over. The phosphorus cycle may start in the form of solid rocks and geological formations. The phosphorus is present in rocks in the chemical form of phosphates. The rock, deep underground, rises from plate movements and volcano activations can pump it into the air and then it settles on the ground surfaces. When the rock rises to the surface, the phosphorus is exposed to weather. Here, the phosphorus is weathered from the rocks by wind, rain, and other disturbances. The phosphorus is now dissolved in solution and can leach into soil or run off into water pools. From the soil, the phosphorus gets used by plants to form different molecules. These plants are consumed by primary consumers and the molecules travel up the food chain. Eventually, the phosphorus returns to the soil by decomposers like fungi and certain bacteria. In cases of high run off, the phosphorus leaches out of the soil into the water pools. Here the phosphorus settles to the bottom and eventually forms new sediments and compresses down into rocks and other formations as phosphates once again.
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