Word: topsoil
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...effect on the ecology of the region. Scientists have worried about the effect upon world climate when the entire rain forest is cut. According to present development plans, that will probably be an accomplished fact by the middle of the next century. Another drawback is that the topsoil of the Amazon region is thin, and the jungle, contrary to popular belief, does not reclaim cleared land that has been depleted. Unless modern techniques of crop rotation and fertilization are used -techniques few of the impoverished colonists know-nutrients could be washed away a few years after the land is cleared...
...sullen frown was about the only kind of dissent that was at all tolerable throughout the turmoil of the war years. If anyone chose to criticize the ROTC drills, it was only on the grounds that their massing in the Yard destroyed the grass which kept the topsoil from blowing off into Somerville...
...most likely answer is new legislation to enforce reclamation. Some environmentalists point to laws in parts of Europe that make strip miners restore the land to the condition in which they found it-with rocks and subsoil below and topsoil above, all limed, re-seeded and fertilized. Such procedures in the U.S. would cost more per acre (at least $2,000) than an acre of prime mining land. Even so, President Nixon has already asked Congress to pass a bill that would at least make a dent in the problem-and consumers' pocketbooks. It would impose federal standards...
Lunar Gardening. The moon's "topsoil" also produced some surprises. Examining a 16-in.-long lunar core obtained by the astronauts when they sank a tube into the surface of the moon, lunar scientists found ten distinctly different layers of material. This indicates that the churning and pulverizing effect -the so-called gardening of the lunar surface attributed to bombardment by smaller meteorites-is occurring in at least some places at a much slower rate than had been supposed, thereby allowing the various layers to accumulate undisturbed for long periods of time. Cracked University of Chicago Chemist Edward Anders...
...years, however, the major oil companies have compiled an excellent record. They have hired Arctic ecologists to help minimize the effects of their presence, even going so far as to develop hardy strains of grass to protect the tundra. Helicopters move whole drilling rigs to avoid ripping up the topsoil. Three companies have built their own highly advanced sewage-disposal units to prevent pollution of the ground water supply. No Alaskan city, in fact, can yet match those units...