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Re:Spreading rock dust on farms as a climate solution by Maursault on Saturday May 14, 2022 @09:07PM (#31384304)
Also, inevitably running out of rocks.
Re:Spreading rock dust on farms as a climate solution by brokencode on Saturday May 14, 2022 @09:16PM (#31384363)
Can somebody who knows about rocks weigh in here? I was under the assumption that pretty much the whole Earth crust was made of rocks, and that we’d run out of virtually any resource before we run out of rocks.
Re:Spreading rock dust on farms as a climate solution by unlikelymordant on Saturday May 14, 2022 @09:35PM (#31384463)
Basalt is extremely common, its not something that anyone will run out of.

We may run out of basalt sources that are close enough to farmland it can be spread on, but it would take a while. And trains would change the economics.

Re:Spreading rock dust on farms as a climate solution by heavyset_go on Saturday May 14, 2022 @09:38PM (#31384480)
I'd imagine the types of rocks would matter. There are also a lot of ores that should remain in the ground, and not pulverized and spread, contaminating water and soil.
Re:Spreading rock dust on farms as a climate solution by furins on Sunday May 15, 2022 @01:19AM (#31385439)
All the oceanic crust is made of basalt, so approximately 2/3 of the planet is covered by several miles of it. Unfortunately mining oceanic crust is impractical, for obvious reasons. However some oceanic crust got trapped between mountain ranges during continental collision, forming ophiolites. These can be suitable mining sites, together with LIPs (large igneous provinces) and the rocks of some shoshonitic (K-rich) basalt volcanoes.
Re:Spreading rock dust on farms as a climate solution by eloff on Saturday May 14, 2022 @09:17PM (#31384371)
Rock is not a scarce resource. The planet is literally made of it.
Re:Spreading rock dust on farms as a climate solution by WalterBright on Saturday May 14, 2022 @10:44PM (#31384814)
We're all just pond scum on a ball of molten iron.
Re:Spreading rock dust on farms as a climate solution by Maursault on Sunday May 15, 2022 @03:55PM (#31390497)
Yeah, but it isn't an infinite resource. Eventually, I meant, inevitably, I wrote.
Re:Spreading rock dust on farms as a climate solution by eloff on Monday May 16, 2022 @10:20AM (#31397639)
Nothing is infinite. For the purposes of grinding basalt rock to sprinkle on farms, it is essentially sufficiently abundant that it doesn't matter.