This concept was introduced into the doctrine of the biosphere by the great scientist academician Vernadsky. According to Vernadsky, nutrient is “a substance created by life, with powerful potential energy”. It was about bitumen, oil, limestone, coal, etc.
Simply put, particles of organic matter are a nutrient. Examples are wool, teeth, discarded deer horns, feathers discarded by birds, fallen leaves, fruits and pollen of plants, tree bark or deadwood, animal excrement. Biogenic substances include pearls, eggshells, gall (kidney) stones, milk, nectar, cobwebs, silk. The list is endless.
Non-biogenic matter can also be formed by living organisms, but, unlike biogenic, it is extremely unstable in the biosphere, since it is actively processed by other living organisms.
The process is especially characteristic for organic compounds. Only a tiny fraction of non-biogenic substances becomes fossil, passing into poly-biogenic substances. Sedimentary rocks of our planet were formed in past geological eras. Polybiogenic substances in sedimentary rocks include, for example, detritus (plant), the remains of organisms (we call them mummified), coprolites, amber, microbiogenic minerals (iron hydroxides, sulfides, carbonates, etc.).
The rocks of the Earth are created mainly by living organisms. The same carbonate rocks (dolomites, limestone, chalk) were the result of planktonic activity and the bottom film of inland water bodies and the World Ocean.
Coprolite limestones are also classified as biogenic. This is also a rock in which the source material for the formation of steel is the feces of the ileoids that have processed calcareous sludge.
Siliceous rocks (quartz, opal, chalcedony) are composed mainly of skeletal remains of "silicon" organisms - diatoms (diatoms), radiolarians, sponges, silicoflagellates.
But combustible minerals (caustobiolites) are sedimentary rocks and are characterized by significant concentrations of nutrients considered by us. Caustobiolites formed under a certain influence of the energy functions of various living organisms.
Particularly intensively, organic non-biogenic matter accumulates in parts of lakes and in swamps, moreover, in the modern biosphere. For example, in our country about 60% of the peat stock of the total world volume. And this is due to a certain geographical location and, of course, climatic conditions.
Continental water bodies and the World Ocean accumulate the remains of plankton, free-floating and bottom microorganisms, sapropel (sediment deposits in fresh water bodies), animal excrement. By the way, part of this process can be observed even at home, in aquariums.
Coal, in turn, is formed from peat, but only already ancient. Oil shales formed from sapropels. Here, organic matter is represented by phytoplankton (residues). But there are also “semi-combustible” shales, - in their composition are the remains of zooplankton and zoobenthos.
The nutrient has also caused the appearance of "black gold" - oil. The "parents" of oil are the remains of the already mentioned planktonic organisms.
The rocks are phosphate, manganese and glandular - sedimentary, with a low concentration of nutrients.
If we consider the deposits of phosphorites, then more than 90% is in the bottom sediments of the seas, the origin, as you might guess, is organic. The main accumulator of phosphorus is phytoplankton, which is so often described as the glow of water at night. Well, the phosphorus sediment at the bottom of the sea - zooplankton feces.
Ferruginous or manganese rocks form living organisms of swamps, lakes, seas, and oceans. The concentration of iron and manganese already depends on iron bacteria.
Aliveites (including bauxite), salts, clastic and clay rocks are also created by living organisms.
But the "most powerful potential energy" was created for centuries and millennia, deposited in fractions of millimeters. We spend this energy in huge volumes. We need to think about the prospects now, since with such a pace the supply of most minerals will be exhausted by the end of this century …
