Abstract

The necessity of identifying a larger (than the biosphere) global ecosystem of geospheric rank—the ecosphere—has been substantiated. The boundaries of the ecosphere are determined, and they include all living matter of the planet, the atmosphere up to the thermosphere, the entire hydrosphere, and the upper part of the lithosphere with the metamorphic layer. Within this space, a great geological cycle is achieved, linking the biosphere and its abiotic environment into a unified whole and creating a specific form of its structural and functional organization. The great geological cycle of matter performs the function of a system-forming cyclic process in the ecosphere, which does not have complete closedness. The main factor controlling the degree of closedness of the geological cycle is the exchange of matter at the boundary between the lithosphere and the mantle. The processes of metamorphism occurring outside the biosphere constitute the mechanism of ecosphere organization, which has long supported life on Earth: they regenerate the products of biospheric metabolism and ensure their return to the biosphere in forms available for reconsumption by living organisms. One characteristic feature of the ecosphere space is the redox nonequilibrium caused by the activity of living organisms. In the ecosphere, a complete life cycle takes place from the formation of living organisms from mineral components to complete transformation into the initial mineral components of living matter and all products of biospheric metabolism. Outside the ecosphere there are neither living organisms nor products of their vital activity that have retained the thermodynamic nonequilibrium acquired in the biosphere.