Word: soiling
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...preserved. "This fossil forest is not petrified, turned to stone by minerals entering and replacing the wood cell structure," says Neil McMillan, of the Geological Survey of Canada, who discovered a similar but much smaller site 30 years ago on nearby Ellesmere Island. Instead, shallow burial in the Arctic soil has left the forest in a mummified state. As a result, says Basinger, "you can saw the wood. You can burn it." Indeed, during an expedition to the site in July, he actually brewed a pot of tea over burning fossil debris...
...scientists shoveled away soil covering some of the mummified wood, then used brushes to sweep away the remaining dirt so the roots of the ancient stumps would not be damaged. All told, they excavated a dozen stumps to a depth of three feet, identifying some of the trees as dawn redwoods. This species was once widespread throughout high latitudes in North America, Europe and Asia, but is now nearly extinct, surviving in only a few locations in China...
...increasing numbers, with sometimes dire effects on agriculture, forests, public health and even people's homes. The Mediterranean fruit fly, which threatened California citrus crops in 1980-82, is thought to have arrived in a tourist's peach. Africanized "killer" bees, sighted for the first time on U.S. soil last year near Bakersfield, Calif., probably hitchhiked there from Latin America aboard a ship laden with oil- drilling equipment. Asian tiger mosquitoes, carriers of dengue, a viral infection that causes chills, headache and muscle pains, were intercepted near Houston last year. They have since migrated to at least six Southeastern states...
...rusting on Kesey's farm in Pleasant Hill, Ore., the vehicle symbolizes the built-in obsolescence of 1960s enthusiasms. The same can be said for Demon Box, a collection of new and previously published magazine pieces about the good old days, departed friends, family, the pull of the soil and the lure of dope. Spruced up and polished, these writings impress and entertain but seem like an attempt to squeeze a few more miles out of a writer who has either run out of gas or has been stalled by too many chemical additives...
...from sad to happy as she and others walk among the ghosts of their forebears and the splendid cypress trees they planted. Says she: "They sang the same spirituals we sing. 'Steal Away to Jesus!' And 'All o' God's Chillun Got Shoes' . . . For us to walk on the soil where they walked -- there is going to be some crying and everything...