Like diamonds, clay soils are forever

When you walk about your yard on a wet day, do your shoes stick in the mud? Could you make ceramic pots out of the soil in your garden? If the answers are yes to both, odds are you have clay soil, one of the biggest challenges ...

New paper explores why Peru's parrots eat clay

For more than 16 years, researchers and volunteers have been observing wildlife along the clay cliffs of Southeastern Peru's Tambopata River. They've gathered data every day, logging more than 20,000 hours and building one ...

Biochar helps hold water, saves money

The abstract benefits of biochar for long-term storage of carbon and nitrogen on American farms are clear, and now new research from Rice University shows a short-term, concrete bonus for farmers as well.

New findings explain how soil traps plant-based carbon

When carbon molecules from plants enter the soil, they hit a definitive fork in the road. Either the carbon gets trapped in the soil for days or even years, where it is effectively sequestered from immediately entering the ...

Carbon-chomping soil bacteria may pose hidden climate risk

Much of the earth's carbon is trapped in soil, and scientists have assumed that potential climate-warming compounds would safely stay there for centuries. But new research from Princeton University shows that carbon molecules ...

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