bistecca
Member
I'm going to apologize in advance for the rambling and incoherent sort of nature of this post.
I've been interested in health for a good long while now, and reading ray's blog and this forum has inspired in me the same kind of multi-discipline interconnected thinking that he demonstrates.
Everyone here is probably keenly aware not just of the importance of what they eat, but also the importance of looking deeper.. for example looking at the foods eaten by the foods you eat, or the soil in which your food is grown.
I try to support with my money the farms that i think are raising animals and producing foods in a way that is good for the environment, the animals, and the people.
I've had a lot of different jobs, and i've tried to use each job as a learning experience. I've worked in butcheries, on a farm, in restaurants, in horticulture and landscape maintenance, to name a few. I faced certain challenges within the context of horticulture, trying to grow plants that are not suited to our climate or soil. This led me to really examine the influence that geology has on everything downstream, but applied to more than just growing decorative plants..
Rocks are weathered through physical, chemical and biological means into soil, plants grow in soil, animals eat plants, and we eat the animals and the plants as well. How could geology not have large implications with respect to all of those downstream things?
I'm not a geologist, however i've learned enough to appreciate big concepts. The difference between Mafic and Felsic rocks seems fairly important. Mafic rocks are rich in Magnesium(ma-) and iron(f for ferrous). Felsic rocks are rich in FELdspar and SIlicon. Most of the crust of the earth is underlain by one of these two major rock groups. Basalt is the primary Mafic rock, and Granite is the primary Felsic rock. Most of the oceans are underlain by basalt, and most of the continents are underlain by granite, with some exceptions. Basalt is more dense, and richer in most minerals in comparison to granite. You can think of granite as a sort of distilled layer that results as magma cools. Just like cream separates from milk, or fat rises in a soup, granite is what remains on top when magma cools and slowly crystallizes. I began to ask myself the importance of this fundamental division..
I was watching a geology lecture on youtube pertaining to something called Flood Basalts in the Pacific Northwest area of north america. In this lecture, he mentioned that this somewhat rare formation led to tremendous fertility in the downstream regions, claiming that the "breadbasket of america" middle america was basically all owing to glacial till that pushed soils from the area in the PNW, down into the middle of the U.S. This led me to ask myself what it might be about basalt as a rock that might contribute to this rich soil formation? Is it the minerals? I asked a similar question on r/soils on reddit and received some interesting answers. How does geology influence soil, plants, animals, etc • r/Soil
In response to my basic question of "is basalt derived soil more fertile? why?" this was a response..
________________
As someone that works with basalt as a parent material in research it's a question I had to ask myself at the beginning. This info is pretty basic but I hope helps you.
Basalt is super common and easily erodes compared to granite and others. It has a lot of pyroxene, olivine, and plagiocase feldspars (along with a number of others) in it with only about only half is SiO2. As compared to the more felsic minerals that can contain 70% SiO2 (granite and rhyolite).
Si-O bonds are very strong and because of it the parent material is more chemically stable and less likely to hydrolyze.
More over the basalts constituents besides SiO2 tend to weather faster and elements that are large and have higher valency have more preferential adsorption to surfaces.
Now on to why this matters, olivines have Mg or Fe; pyroxenes can have Ca, Na, Mn, Mg, and Fe; plagioclases Ca and Na. Additionally there are accessory minerals and for instance various forms of apatite that carry Phosphorus.
Theses are all vital nutrients and in areas where the land or systems are relatively young there tends to be a lot of P, and this deceases over time. Where as C and N increase with biotic processes. The initial high P content and other nutrients really help microfauna and fungi develop.
So as basalts weather secondary products are developed such as smectites and eventually develop to kaolinites. Smectites have a high shrink swell potential and allow for a lot of water storage and have a high structural charge allowing elements to stick to it.
_____________
So minerals, water holding capacity, rate of weathering.. all important factors in ecosystem health. So i began to ask myself which other regions in the world have a geology characterized by basalt? Well there are a lot of them, and a lot of them are generally very fertile regions. In the course of my research, i happened upon a non-profit group called Remineralize the Earth, whose goal, in short, is to "promote the use of natural land and sea-based minerals to restore soils and forests, produce more nutritious food, and remove excess CO2 from the atmosphere." Now weather or not you agree that we should be reducing CO2 from the atmosphere, i like the idea of being surrounded by ecosystems with a high metabolic rate, for all the same reasons i personally would like a fast highly functional metabolism... Throughout my research, i also stumbled upon this paper, from Nature "Farming with crops and rocks to address global climate, food and soil security" Which advocates using Basalt in a variety of contexts, for a variety of purposes. So, having said all that.. what do we think? Is basalt the most peat approved rock? Should you add basalt to your garden of potatoes or to your fruit trees or to the wildflower bed upon which the bees that produce your honey feed? Basalt for the pasture of your local farms dairy and beef cows? Basalt applied to roadside ditches to crank up the metabolism of the ecosystems that buffer all the pollution we produce? Has ray written anything about geology and ecosystem and agricultural system health? Should i be stoned for suggesting we should do something that removes co2?
I've been interested in health for a good long while now, and reading ray's blog and this forum has inspired in me the same kind of multi-discipline interconnected thinking that he demonstrates.
Everyone here is probably keenly aware not just of the importance of what they eat, but also the importance of looking deeper.. for example looking at the foods eaten by the foods you eat, or the soil in which your food is grown.
I try to support with my money the farms that i think are raising animals and producing foods in a way that is good for the environment, the animals, and the people.
I've had a lot of different jobs, and i've tried to use each job as a learning experience. I've worked in butcheries, on a farm, in restaurants, in horticulture and landscape maintenance, to name a few. I faced certain challenges within the context of horticulture, trying to grow plants that are not suited to our climate or soil. This led me to really examine the influence that geology has on everything downstream, but applied to more than just growing decorative plants..
Rocks are weathered through physical, chemical and biological means into soil, plants grow in soil, animals eat plants, and we eat the animals and the plants as well. How could geology not have large implications with respect to all of those downstream things?
I'm not a geologist, however i've learned enough to appreciate big concepts. The difference between Mafic and Felsic rocks seems fairly important. Mafic rocks are rich in Magnesium(ma-) and iron(f for ferrous). Felsic rocks are rich in FELdspar and SIlicon. Most of the crust of the earth is underlain by one of these two major rock groups. Basalt is the primary Mafic rock, and Granite is the primary Felsic rock. Most of the oceans are underlain by basalt, and most of the continents are underlain by granite, with some exceptions. Basalt is more dense, and richer in most minerals in comparison to granite. You can think of granite as a sort of distilled layer that results as magma cools. Just like cream separates from milk, or fat rises in a soup, granite is what remains on top when magma cools and slowly crystallizes. I began to ask myself the importance of this fundamental division..
I was watching a geology lecture on youtube pertaining to something called Flood Basalts in the Pacific Northwest area of north america. In this lecture, he mentioned that this somewhat rare formation led to tremendous fertility in the downstream regions, claiming that the "breadbasket of america" middle america was basically all owing to glacial till that pushed soils from the area in the PNW, down into the middle of the U.S. This led me to ask myself what it might be about basalt as a rock that might contribute to this rich soil formation? Is it the minerals? I asked a similar question on r/soils on reddit and received some interesting answers. How does geology influence soil, plants, animals, etc • r/Soil
In response to my basic question of "is basalt derived soil more fertile? why?" this was a response..
________________
As someone that works with basalt as a parent material in research it's a question I had to ask myself at the beginning. This info is pretty basic but I hope helps you.
Basalt is super common and easily erodes compared to granite and others. It has a lot of pyroxene, olivine, and plagiocase feldspars (along with a number of others) in it with only about only half is SiO2. As compared to the more felsic minerals that can contain 70% SiO2 (granite and rhyolite).
Si-O bonds are very strong and because of it the parent material is more chemically stable and less likely to hydrolyze.
More over the basalts constituents besides SiO2 tend to weather faster and elements that are large and have higher valency have more preferential adsorption to surfaces.
Now on to why this matters, olivines have Mg or Fe; pyroxenes can have Ca, Na, Mn, Mg, and Fe; plagioclases Ca and Na. Additionally there are accessory minerals and for instance various forms of apatite that carry Phosphorus.
Theses are all vital nutrients and in areas where the land or systems are relatively young there tends to be a lot of P, and this deceases over time. Where as C and N increase with biotic processes. The initial high P content and other nutrients really help microfauna and fungi develop.
So as basalts weather secondary products are developed such as smectites and eventually develop to kaolinites. Smectites have a high shrink swell potential and allow for a lot of water storage and have a high structural charge allowing elements to stick to it.
_____________
So minerals, water holding capacity, rate of weathering.. all important factors in ecosystem health. So i began to ask myself which other regions in the world have a geology characterized by basalt? Well there are a lot of them, and a lot of them are generally very fertile regions. In the course of my research, i happened upon a non-profit group called Remineralize the Earth, whose goal, in short, is to "promote the use of natural land and sea-based minerals to restore soils and forests, produce more nutritious food, and remove excess CO2 from the atmosphere." Now weather or not you agree that we should be reducing CO2 from the atmosphere, i like the idea of being surrounded by ecosystems with a high metabolic rate, for all the same reasons i personally would like a fast highly functional metabolism... Throughout my research, i also stumbled upon this paper, from Nature "Farming with crops and rocks to address global climate, food and soil security" Which advocates using Basalt in a variety of contexts, for a variety of purposes. So, having said all that.. what do we think? Is basalt the most peat approved rock? Should you add basalt to your garden of potatoes or to your fruit trees or to the wildflower bed upon which the bees that produce your honey feed? Basalt for the pasture of your local farms dairy and beef cows? Basalt applied to roadside ditches to crank up the metabolism of the ecosystems that buffer all the pollution we produce? Has ray written anything about geology and ecosystem and agricultural system health? Should i be stoned for suggesting we should do something that removes co2?
