Soil

I listened this morning to an interview with Matthew West who has written a fascinating book called Soil: the incredible story of what keeps the earth, and us, healthy (Murdoch Books). The title gives you the idea: soil is a really important ecosystem, and we are destroying it.

Matthew West points out that soil is not inert. On the contrary it displays amazingly complex biodiversity. There are more living organisms in one teaspoonful of good soil than there are people on the earth. Can that be true???


Looking for an illustration for a soil blip, I remembered these samples of red outback soil we brought back from our travels. Only they are not really ‘soil’ are they, but sand. Does sand have biodiverse ecosystems too? Apparently it does. One grain of sand can harbour up to 100,000 micro organisms and thousands of different species of bacteria.


Numbers to make your head hurt.