Amazonian terra preta can transform poor soil into fertile
The search for El Dorado in the Amazonian rainforest might not have yielded pots of gold, but it has led to unearthing a different type of gold mine: some of the globe's richest soil that can transform poor soil into highly fertile ground. . That's not all. Scientists have a method to reproduce this soil -- known as terra preta, or Amazonian dark earths -- and say it can pull substantial amounts...An international research team has discovered that forest fragmentation poses an even greater threat to Amazonian biodiversity than previously thought. . .. The Amazon contains the planet’s most biologically diverse tree communities, with up to three hundred species occurring in an area the size of just two football fields. These...There's a scholarly debate brewing about whether pre-Columbian Amazonian populations settled in large numbers across Amazonia and created the modern forest setting that many conservationists take to be ‘natural.' . .. "We don't contradict that there were major settlements in key are...