The 14 by 4 ft., 4.3m by 1.2m, raised bed is full and covered with soil. A one foot sub surface layer of large wood covered with small wood, leaves, chicken compost, and layered with the dug dirt a couple of times with more leaves, and extra dirt mounded up in the middle, and it all topped up with 30 years of soil building under a red-osier dogwood that was removed with fire a few years ago before it spread further.

#gardening #RaisedBeds #garden #topsoil #May7

According to the #EuropeanDroughtObservatory, central and eastern #Europe is experiencing an early and severe #drought, threatening #agriculture and #foodsecurity. Affected countries include #Germany, #Poland, #Ukraine, #Belarus, #Greece, #Sweden, and #Ireland. Over half of #Germany reports extreme #topsoil #drought, as well as drops in #water levels of the #RhineRiver, which has disrupted cargo #transport and raised #logistical costs. Read more: https://www.isciences.com/blog/2025/04/18/europe-widespread-deficits-continue-throughout-e-europe

(Image: Frontiers)

It takes 500 years to restore one inch of topsoil.

Source:
NG Collapse. How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed.

#documentaries
#topsoil
#collapse

The percent of #topsoil moisture in the short to very short category is 73% nationally, up 5% from last week.

Nationally, this is the highest value over the past 10 years.

#drought
https://agindrought.unl.edu/Other.aspx

Gateway to the #underworld: The enormous #permafrost '#megaslump' in #Siberia that keeps getting bigger

The growing "gateway to the underworld," officially known as the #BatagayMegaslump, is the largest megaslump in the world and exposes permafrost layers that are 650,000 years old.

By Sascha Pare
published September 13, 2024

"The 'gateway to the underworld' is a colossal, expanding crater in Siberia's permafrost. It is officially called the #Batagay (also spelled #Batagaika) crater or megaslump and formed when a portion of hillside in the #YanaUplands collapsed in the 1970s.

"However, the crater wasn't discovered until 1991, when satellite images revealed a rounded cliff face towering over a huge depression in the frigid landscape.

"The Batagay crater is the largest megaslump in the world, measuring 3,250 feet (990 meters) wide as of 2023. The cliff face at the top of the formation, or headwall, stands 180 feet (55 m) high.

"When it opened, the gateway exposed layers of permafrost that had been frozen for up to 650,000 years — the oldest permafrost in Siberia and the second-oldest in the world, after relict ground ice in #Canada's #YukonTerritory that is about 740,000 years old. Recently, researchers found that the gateway is expanding annually by about 35 million cubic feet (1 million cubic meters), with the depression sinking further into the ground and exposing new layers of ancient permafrost.

"The headwall of the gateway is also retreating at a rate of 40 feet (12 m) per year due to permafrost thaw, discharging massive amounts of ice and sediment into the crater, according to a 2024 study. Some of this melt material may remain in the crater, but #sediment and ice also washes into the #BatagayRiver valley at the far end of the gateway, researchers noted in the study.

"The permafrost in this region is 80% ice, which is likely why the hillside slumped in the first place, Thomas Opel, a paleoclimatologist at the Alfred Wegener Institute in Germany who has studied the gateway to the underworld, previously told Live Science.

"The gateway sits in a landscape of larch and birch #woodlands that became the target of #deforestation from the 1940s onward. Deforestation caused the #topsoil to rapidly erode and expose the underlying permafrost, which — due to its icy composition — melted more quickly than if it had been richer in sediments. Significant melting during the following decades caused the hillside to disintegrate and collapse, Opel said."

Read more:
https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/arctic/gateway-to-the-underworld-the-enormous-permafrost-megaslump-in-siberia-that-keeps-getting-bigger

#ClimateChange #Underworld #Methane #Melting #GlobalWarming #ClimateCatastrophe