[Terrapreta] Early Terra Preta Production

[Greg and April]

Sorry to be so long getting back, been dealing with another series of 
migraines and other things and fell behind.


Yes and no.

It's a known fact that a lump of coal sitting in a closed tool box will help 
keep the iron tools from getting rusty, because it's slowly oxidizing, thus 
using the up the O2 faster than the iron will rust.

Who is to say, that during periods of aerobic soil conditions the char is 
not doing much the same?    How do we know that the volatile matter which 
might have been in the char has not already been chemically weathered / 
removed.    I'm not saying that VM was in the char when it was buried, just 
raising the possibility that all we are currently seeing in the TP, is the 
end result of too many years of alternating aerobic and anaerobic to be sure 
that it was not an essential part of getting things started.


Personally I would really like to see a chemical annalist of the pottery 
shards to try and find out the source of the clay that was used, and to see 
if the clay that was used had any particular ion exchange potential - both 
before and after it was fired.

Greg H.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Robert Klein" <arclein at yahoo.com>
To: "Gerald Van Koeverden" <vnkvrdn at yahoo.ca>
Cc: "terra pretta group" <terrapreta at bioenergylists.org>
Sent: Wednesday, January 09, 2008 12:15
Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] Early Terra Preta Production


> Hi
>
> The persistence of charcoal is ample evidence that charcoal resists any 
> form of chemical weathering which makes sense but needed to be proved. 
> Terra preta proves it.  It is not resistant to mechanical weathering, 
> however,and the type of corn char that we are proposing would start of 
> been very fine.  The remaining question is whether any particles large 
> enough to show cell structure would survive.  It is very fragile stuff.
>
> The pottery shards may do some magic, but I think that will be a needle in 
> a haystack, as the clay would be worked on the river bank and sun dried 
> there.
>
> regards
>
> bob
>