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posted by janrinok on Saturday January 21 2023, @07:27PM   Printer-friendly
from the dishing-the-dirt dept.

First precise calculation of the pre-agricultural rate of erosion across the Midwestern U.S., thanks to exploding stars:

In a discovery that has repercussions for everything from domestic agricultural policy to global food security and the plans to mitigate climate change, researchers at the University of Massachusetts recently announced that the rate of soil erosion in the Midwestern US is 10 to 1,000 times greater than pre-agricultural erosion rates. These newly discovered pre-agricultural rates, which reflect the rate at which soils form, are orders of magnitude lower than the upper allowable limit of erosion set by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

The study, which appears in the journal Geology, makes use of a rare element, beryllium-10, or 10Be, that occurs when stars in the Milky Way explode and send high-energy particles, called cosmic rays, rocketing toward Earth. When this galactic shrapnel slams into the Earth's crust, it splits oxygen in the soil apart, leaving tiny trace amounts of 10Be, which can be used to precisely determine average erosion rates over the span of thousands to millions of years.

[...] The numbers are not encouraging. "Our median pre-agricultural erosion rate across all the sites we sampled is 0.04 mm per year," says Larsen. Any modern-day erosion rate higher than that number means that soil is disappearing faster than it is accumulating.

Unfortunately, the USDA's current limit for erosion is 1 mm per year—twenty-five times greater than the average rate Larsen's team found. And some sites are experiencing far greater erosion, disappearing at 1,000 times the natural rate. This means that the USDA's current guidelines will inevitably lead to rapid loss of topsoil.

[...] Yet, there's no reason to despair. "There are agricultural practices, such as no-till farming, that we know how to do and we know greatly reduce erosion," says Quarrier. "The key is to reduce our current erosion rates to natural levels," adds Larsen.

Journal Reference:
Caroline L. Quarrier, Jeffrey S. Kwang, Brendon J. Quirk, et al.; Pre-agricultural soil erosion rates in the midwestern United States. Geology 2022;; 51 (1): 44–48. doi: https://doi.org/10.1130/G50667.1


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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday January 22 2023, @02:25AM (1 child)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday January 22 2023, @02:25AM (#1287994) Journal

    deimtee effectively answered for me. I was being sarcastic. But, I just walked outside a short while ago, and smelled the yummy smells of my garden. See, I've been collecting leaves for mulch. The "new" section of garden has recently been cleared of forest undergrowth, and I ran the tiller over it. Of course, the tiller didn't do especially well, because all of the roots etc. But, I did break up the top 1 to 1 1/2 inches of soil. Now, I'm throwing leaves by the trailerload onto the garden, and running the mulching mower over them. The leaves I'm collecting include this year's fallen leaves, as well as last year's rotten leaves, and maybe some that are even older. Throw a blanket of leaves on the ground 4 to 6 inches deep, run the mower over them, and you're left with about 1/2 inch of nice mulch. Since we don't have very cold winters, decomposition is taking place, right in the middle of winter.

    There's a light rain falling right now, enhancing that rich fertile smell from the garden. Just yummy. And it will be yummier still when I feed that fertilizer to the family!

    Oh. If you're curious, I cleared that undergrowth by pulling the saplings out of the ground, cutting a few sticks of firewood from those that are big enough, then all the brush went into a pile to decompose naturally. I'll probably throw a load of sawdust on top of the pile, to retain moisture and hasten decomposition. No burning, and I didn't even use much gasoline to clear that fresh ground.

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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by anubi on Monday January 23 2023, @07:03AM

    by anubi (2828) on Monday January 23 2023, @07:03AM (#1288146) Journal

    I found it helpful to add water soluble nitrogen to the soil. I'm talking nitrates or urea.

    All the little soil buggies and plants need nitrogen to make amino acids, which are used to make proteins.

    Once the nitrogen couples to itself (N2) and wafts off to the atmosphere, it's no longer bioavailable. It will require a thunderstorm (lightning/intense electrostatic fields), legumes, haber-bosch process, a diesel engine, or a gasser run lean, to convert atmospheric nitrogen into something a plant can use.

    I save my pee for my own compost heap. Its mostly urea, the end product of protein metabolism (NH2)2CO. Unless there is something really wrong with you, pee should be sterile. It was so pure it was just in your blood stream before being filtered out.

    The solid we make is not good for tight reinput to our food. A lot of diseases can be spread this way. That stuff is what was offered to the digestive system, yet was not absorbed. There is a reason it wasn't absorbed. That stuff needs to go to other bacteria which can completely disassemble that "crap".

    Nitrogen is a pretty potent accelerant for organic decomposition and fertilizer. Potassium Nitrate is commonly used to accelerate rotting of stumps, by supplying nitrogen to build bug proteins.

    --
    "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]