The carbon cycle can seem like a complex process because there are many interacting parts. By The Science Learning Hub, a national project designed to support the effective teaching of science in New Zealand schools.

The earth is a constant recipient of an enormous flux of solar radiation as well as considerable infall of the cosmic debris that also arrives periodically in huge, catastrophe-inducing encounters with other space bodies, particularly with massive comets and asteroids. Nothing else comes in, and the planet's relatively powerful gravity prevents anything substantial from leaving. Consequently, life on the earth is predicated on incessant cycling of water and materials that are needed to assemble living bodies as well as to provide suitable environmental conditions for their evolution. By The Encyclopedia of Earth (EoE), an electronic reference about the Earth, its natural environments, and their interaction with society.

The phosphorus cycle is the biogeochemical cycle which characterizes the transport and chemical transformation of phosphorus through the geosphere, hydrosphere and biosphere. By The Encyclopedia of Earth (EoE), an electronic reference about the Earth, its natural environments, and their interaction with society.