Courtesy of the Bureau of Land Management
Fascinating Facts about Soil!
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Almost all the food you eat, fiber (material) for the clothes you wear, and lumber (wood) for the house you live in is produced by soil.
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A single shovelful of soil can contain more species (kinds) of organisms (living things) than live above ground in the entire Amazon rain forest.
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One cup of soil may hold as many bacteria as there are people on Earth. That’s over 7 billion!
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The weight of all the bacteria in 1 acre of soil (about the size of a football field) can equal the weight of one or two cows.
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Mature trees can have as many as 5 million active root tips.
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A teaspoonful of forest soil may hold more than 10 miles of fungi.
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Almost all fresh water travels over soil or through solid before entering our rivers, lakes and aquifers (underground water lakes)
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Plants can remove 400 to 2,000 pounds of water from the soil for every 2 pounds of plant material produced.
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About 85 percent of carbon dioxide (the stuff you breathe out) in our atmosphere (air) comes from the action of soil microorganisms (small living things) feeding on organic matter in the soil.
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When you take a step in a forest, you are being held up on the backs of thousands of bugs.
