Earth's anthrobiogeochemical copper cycle

An “anthrobiogeochemical” copper cycle, from Earth's core to the Moon, combining natural biogeochemical and human anthropogenic stocks and flows is derived for the mid‐1990s. Although some aspects of the quantification have moderate to high uncertainty, the anthropogenic mining, manufacturing, and use flows (on the order of 10 4 Gg Cu/yr) clearly dominate the cycle. In contrast, the natural repositories of Earth's core, mantle, and crust, and of the Moon, hold much higher stocks of copper (>10 10 Gg) than do anthropogenic repositories (<10 6 Gg). The results indicate that the present anthropogenic rate of copper extraction exceeds the natural rate of renewal by ∼10 6 .