terra preta
TEHR-ah PREH-tah
A deep, fertile, charcoal-rich dark soil found in patches throughout the Amazon basin, created by Indigenous peoples over centuries through the deliberate incorporation of charcoal, bone, pottery shards, compost, and manure into the naturally poor tropical soil. Terra preta is not natural; it is engineered — a technology for making the infertile Amazon clay productive, practiced for at least 2,500 years before European contact and largely forgotten afterward. Patches of terra preta remain strikingly fertile today, often centuries after the people who made them were gone.
Etymology
Portuguese — terra (earth) + preta (black). Black earth — the same concept as chernozem, but made by humans rather than by grass.
Notes
The rediscovery of terra preta has inspired the modern biochar movement — the idea that charcoal deliberately added to soil can sequester carbon and improve fertility simultaneously.
*
Random Word