Terra Preta, or Amazonian Dark Earth(s), is human-created, organic-rich soil, formed from food waste, animal bone, human excrement, ash and charcoal from fires, and other waste materials. Sort of a super-compost heap (or midden), Terra Preta was created out of the infertile soils of the Amazonian rainforest, beginning at least as long ago as 4,800 years.
Comparison profiles of nutrient-poor soils (left), and Terra Preta (right). Photo courtesy Bruno Glaser and Rsukiennik
The human-engineered Terra Preta is responsible for the growth of the great walled villages of the Amazon known as the "Lost Cities", recorded (but widely discounted until recently) by two men who were part of Francisco Pizarro's Spanish conquest of South America. Terra Preta is also known for the growth of the biochar movement in the world today. Biochar, adding charcoal to midden deposits, sequesters carbon from the atmosphere and settles it in soil, putting it to work enhancing the soils and doing the planet some good at the same time.
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