Explain how plate tectonics can remove CO2 from the atmosphere?

Question

Explain how plate tectonics can remove CO2 from the atmosphere?

Answer 1

Sedimentary rock from the ocean floor can contain a lot of carbonate minerals which were precipitated from carbon dioxide that entered the ocean from the atmosphere.  A lot of the carbon is incorporated into microscopic shells of single celled organisms which precipitate to the bottom of the ocean to be formed into limestone.

When this oceanic crust is subducted, the net effect is moving carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and putting it underground in limestone.  However, volcanoes which are associated with subduction zones put carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere, but at a much later geological  time than when it entered the ocean in the first place.