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Fertilizing Earthworks

  • Chris Taylor (author)
Chapter of: Making the Geologic Now: Responses to Material Conditions of Contemporary Life(pp. 130–134)

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Metadata
TitleFertilizing Earthworks
ContributorChris Taylor (author)
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.21983/P3.0014.1.21
Landing pagehttps://punctumbooks.com/titles/making-the-geologic-now/
Licensehttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/
CopyrightTaylor, Chris
Publisherpunctum books
Published on2012-12-04
Long abstractEarthworks map the intersection of human construction and geomorphology. They begin with land and extend through the complex social and ecological processes that create landscape. Propelled by the legacy of John Brinkerhoff Jackson, our understanding of earthworks as sites where the human and the geologic intersect has expanded to encompass human settlements, monumental artworks and industrial installations, as well as traces of their construction and decay, ranging from geologic material and weather to cigarette butts and hydroelectric dams.Since humans took an active role in cultivating food and medicine, nearly 10,000 years ago, we have been involved in shaping the surface of the earth and learned quickly the impor-tance of maintaining soil fertility by adding available organic nutrients to the ground. Human development occurred over millennia precisely because of our ability to sustain ourselves in the places where we lived. Understanding the chemical make up of soil fertility began with the identification of the key ingredients: phosphorus in 1669, nitrogen in 1772, and potassium in 1807. Nitrogen, while comprising 78% of the earth’s atmosphere, was the most difficult to isolate. Feeding the biological hunger for usable nitrogen to create chemical fertilizers required a source for naturally occurring nirates—nitrogen-oxygen chemical units accessible to reaction. The arrival of industrialization, ushering in the Anthropocene, is marked by the human ability to move vast quantities of geologic material.
Page rangepp. 130–134
Print length5 pages
LanguageEnglish (Original)
Contributors

Chris Taylor

(author)