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For most of us, soil is just there. We don’t question it, as soil seems to have always been here.
We need a paradigm shift in the way we see soil
Many see soil as 'dead dirt'. But this is changing to
The present generation is being introduced to a 'microbial mush', where the soil seems to be teeming with microbes, which ignores
Way that wish to portray a soil - as a 'civilisation full of life moving among magnificent cities and the countryside
Different civilisations have seen soil in different ways.
John Berger said in his 'Ways of Seeing' that seeing comes before words. The way we see soil determines how we understand it. He argued that throughout history, the way we see art has been manipulated by a privileged minority to preserve their social dominance. We cannot say the same for soil, but the way we look at soil can tell us a lot about our priorities. Look at the history of some of our famous civilisations and how they saw soil. It also applies to soil science and how that has changed, and is changing, our view of soil.. We are going to look at soil in this site in a different way - from underground.
We send off massively expensive telescopes, looking for ‘water’, as a sign of possible life, There may well be "a 95% chance of an Earth-Like Planet within 20 years" However it seems a lot more lucrative to study the Earth under our feet.There is water out there in our own solar system, as ice and vapour, as well as further away in interstellar space and prostellar clouds. Yet under our feet there are all sorts of glorious life, thanks to water being everywhere.
Imagine being IN the soil, perhaps a small creature a millimetre long, that somehow can see into the blackness and determine the structures in which strange new communities live.
I would like to look directly into soil. I would like a 'soilscope' - a sort of telescope that can see in the dark into the crevices and the creatures moving about. But we don't have one, which is in itself surprising; with all our technologies and AI, we havent put the time money and energy in to develop one. That tells us about how important we see soil. We resort to all sorts of other - less satisfactory - ways, because we don't really know what we are looking for. we poke it smear it rub it smell it, now analyse its DNA - all to get some idea. But we still don't have a view of its living architecture.
Blind
Blind
Most of us are blind to soil. We spend trillions looking up into the sky, looking out for water as a possible ‘sign of life’, but ignore the multitude of life beneath our feet. Da Vinca – who was a water engineer among his many talents – said over 500 years ago ‘We know more about the movement of celestial bodies than about the soil underfoot.’
However. some characters at Jodrell bank (Cheshire telescope) recognise the 'magic of soil'.
Dirt
Dirt
Some of us just see soil as a lump of dead dirt, something to be wiped off you fingers or boots. Yet soils are not lumps of dead dirt but teeming with life - a new universe to be discovered. In this site we explain - perhaps for the first time ever - how many of those bits of life came to be here. For the first we are going to look at soil from its creation through uts evolution to the present day.
Coming to Life
Coming to Life
Most people’s experience is of the feel beneath our feet. We were taught in soil science that it is a mixture of sand silt and clay with organic matter. Soils consist of a melange of these mixtures, from near solids, through bouncy sponges to slushy ices and then to liquid lunches. All these consistencies occur at various times and places, and are constantly moving between each other. At one time the soil can be bone dry and rock hard, yet when rains have fallen on it become spongy and springy.
Soils have all sorts of physical chemical and biological systems working together through those cracks and crannies. Because these crannies are often only a millimetre wide, there will be massive chemical interchanges going on across the water of that vast surface area. Many – the nematodes and other worms – squirm round in the surface water, while other tiny creatures with jointed limbs (arthropods) can run fast through the networks of narrow passages. As they do, they carry a whole range of microbes in their guts.
Rather than just seeing the physics, the idea of a ‘living entity’, conveys the unique properties better. The three most important properties are that soils break down dead matter, recycle the nutritious breakdown products, produce aggregates to make soil strong, to support plant structures above ground and much life below. Many more functions.
Each of the kingdoms of life Bacteria, Archaea, Protista, Fungi, Plantae, and Animalia are represented in soil, which contributes to the complex soil ecosystem through various interactions. While not all species from each kingdom may be present in every soil environment, collectively, soils contain representatives from all the main kingdoms of life
Invisible
Invisible
Just as most people are blind to the soil, soil is usually invisible in the great story of earth – how life developed to what we know today. Its importance in evolution above ground is often overlooked. Yet many of our life forms are here because of soil. The most obvious are the plants, whose support and nutrition depend on soil. But it was not always there to do that. Soil has withstood extinctions, which have killed many other life forms. And if anything is going to save this planet, it is most likely soil.
How did it get here?
How did it get here?
When I ask ‘Where does soil come from?’ most people give me a quizzical look and say: ‘Out of the garden?’ No, I mean where do soils came from originally? They have not always been around – as our 'early earth' planet started off pretty hot due to bombardments - over 200C surface temperature.- hardly conducive to maintaining soil. Very few of us have ever asked these questions: ‘When, where and how did this soil come to be what it is today? How long ago did it develop its characteristic and unique form? How did this happen, and what circumstances bought it about?
An old research mate told me that he had always presumed soils developed because small animals grew up inside pores in the sand, silt, and even clay. I had to point out that small soil animals cannot live inside spaces left by rocks and sand and silt, as they would soon be mangled or dry out. They help produce all sorts of structures, of various cement and building materials, in which they can then live.
This site is devoted to working out how soil got here.
I would like you to see the soil differently. Pick up a lump, rub it, smell it, see if anything moving, and imagine what is going on in that lump. Try and imagine a continuous dynamic of characters that has helped shape our past, and if we see it as a living entity, how valuable it could be making our planet more habitable.
5 things I've learned about soil
5 things I've learned about soil
1. Small soil creatures play a much more profound role than previously given credit in both how plants live and how they decompose
2. That the various process found in soil now did not all arrive at the same time, but changes have been going on for around ½ billion years, each requiring new forms of energy.
3. In that time, the early aerobic processes were joined by anaerobic processes as the soil got deeper.
4. By looking at how the soil evolved underground, this can help us work out how evolution occurred above ground, and is particularly helpful with insect evolution.
5. Various extinctions could have spelled the end of life on this planet, but it seems the soil has been the saviour
My day: Root laboratory
Now: Rhizotron
Seeing from below
Seeing from below
On this site, we are now looking at soil – not as a static lump, but a cross-section of a continuous flow of life. Soil looks static, stable and still and in many ways it is just that providing a resilient environment for plants and creatures to evolve over millions of years. yet, it is in constant movement, with small and larger movers going along, up and down. It has been like that for a long time, but is very hard to see.
Here, we going to look into the soil, over millions of years, where we are going to find out more about that flow of life– from the distant past to the present now - and how that has influenced the rest of life. You will have seen and heard many a description of evolution, without reference to soil. It is as if the plants and animals evolved without soil. They would not have got very far. Here we change that by having a mite's eye view of the world from underground. We could not do a worms' eye view, as they have no eyes and if they did they could only tell the latter half the story.
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