I get the basic concept of composting, but what’s the “life cycle” of a leaf that blows into a lake or river?
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It degrades.
Various processes degrade the leaf. The currents of the water tears off some chunks, some chemical reactions occur in the water because it is a solvent (and some substances of the lead dissolve into it).
The rest of the leaf is consumed by other life. Some are consumed by larger animals and by macro organisms – small bugs and larvae. Others are consumed by microorganisms.
Regardless, anything of nutritional value in the leaf (aka almost all of it) is consumed and passed in through the normal cycle of eat, poop, get eaten, get pooped.
They don’t all decompose. Some fall to the bottom and if oxygen levels are low enough, the leaves will not break down quickly, but form a muddy, dark layer of muck. If that happens enough times, the layers build up to a significant thickness and with enough time, you’ll get peat. Wait even longer (a lot longer, like millions of years longer) and you will get coal.
Bugs and microbes eat them and turn them into black and smelly goop. The goop eventually mixes with sand, clay, and gravel to form soil as we know it.
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