[Terrapreta] Life cycle of forest fire char?

[Richard Haard]

There was no charcoal here in this forest fire aftermath. Just ash and  
heat degraded soil. Blackened bark on the dead trees was very thin. I  
wnet there to collect charcoal and could find none.

This paper and a few others in the list bibliography by  TH Deluca et  
al may be of interest about wildfire produced charcoal and nitrogen  
cycling in ponderosa pine forests.

Rich

On Jan 29, 2008, at 4:57 PM, Green Waste Recycle Yard wrote:

>  What happens to char produced by a forest fire?
>
> 1) Is it mostly not pure charcoal, and thus does get utilized as a  
> nutrient?
> 2) Does it wash/blow away because it is on the surface?
> 3) Does it enter into the soil?
> 4) Does it actually "go away" as they claimed? Or is this just  
> simplistic observation on their part?
> 5) Some combination of the above, or other explanation?
>

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