[Terrapreta] The Reason for Pottery Shards in Terra Preta. Re: Char and compost ( was Char made made under pressurized conditions? )

[David Hirst .com]

Is it possible that the pottery pots were used in the manufacturing process?
When full of stuff, it was set light, sealed up, and then smashed open as
part of the spreading process. Could it be that the pottery baking was a
by-product of the char-making? Could the clay have been a soft, unbaked
lining to a wooden container?

Pure speculation, of course.

David

 

David Hirst

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From: terrapreta-bounces at bioenergylists.org
[mailto:terrapreta-bounces at bioenergylists.org] On Behalf Of lou gold
Sent: 02 April 2008 11:54
To: MMBTUPR at aol.com
Cc: terrapreta at bioenergylists.org
Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] The Reason for Pottery Shards in Terra Preta. Re:
Char and compost ( was Char made made under pressurized conditions? )

 

Another good guess, I believe.

If you look at the images in the BBC documentary of the "cut-away" terra
preta dig, it really looks like a honeycomb structure.

And the density of shards is amazing. I wondered why? What function and why
so many? If you consider the population densities reported by Francisco de
Orellana (for example, a stretch of river where people were living
house-pressed-to-house for 20 miles) and the normal volumes of human waste,
it is easy to imagine huge amounts of pottery shards.

It seems to all be coming together, thanks to everyones' speculation.

On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 7:29 AM, <MMBTUPR at aol.com> wrote:

               from          Lewis L Smith

The case of the pottery shards and the role of urine in terra preta is
fascinating.  Congratulations to all on a fine piece of "detective work".

However, a question sticks in my mind. Did the presence of lots of shards in
terra preta accidentally contribute to the effectiveness of the ongoing
chemical processes ?

In Puerto Rico, researchers at the Bacardí rum distillery learned that
microbes which "snip" big molecules into smaller ones, like to "sit down"
while they do their work. So they greatly improved the efficiency of the
Company's digester for distillation slops by placing a honeycomb like
structure within in it. Without taking up a lot of volume, this structure
greatly increased the available surface area to which microbes could attach
themselves.

I also recall from research into ocean-thermal energy conversion by a former
client, that there was a considerable loss of transfer efficiency in the
heat exchangers because the microbes in the sea water like to attach
themselves to the available surfaces rather than float around. 

[ The solution turned out to be pretty simple. Every so often clean the
insides of the heat exchangers with a pots-and-pans cleanser, such as Ajax.
]

Query :  Is it possible that the surfaces of the shards contributed to the
terra-preta processes in an analogous fashion ?

Cordially.


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