University of Maryland: Discovery of 3,775-Year-Old Preserved Log Supports 'Wood Vaulting' as a Climate Solution

[OKIsItJustMe]

https://cmns.umd.edu/news-events/news/discovery-3775-year-old-preserved-log-supports-wood-vaulting-climate-solution

Discovery of 3,775-Year-Old Preserved Log Supports ‘Wood Vaulting’ as a Climate Solution
/ 26 September 2024 /
A new UMD-led study found that burying wood in the right environmental conditions can stop its decomposition and help curb carbon dioxide emissions.

A new study published in the journal Science suggests that an ordinary old log could help refine strategies to tackle climate change.

A team of researchers led by University of Maryland Atmospheric and Oceanic Science Professor Ning Zeng analyzed a 3,775-year-old log and the soil it was excavated from. Their analysis, published on September 26, 2024, revealed that the log had lost less than 5% carbon dioxide from its original state thanks to the low-permeability clay soil that covered it.

“The wood is nice and solid—you could probably make a piece of furniture out of it,” Zeng noted.

Understanding the unique environmental factors that kept that ancient log in mint condition could help researchers perfect an emerging climate solution known as “wood vaulting,” which involves taking wood that is not commercially viable—such as trees destroyed by disease or wildfires, old furniture or unused construction materials—and burying it to stop its decomposition.

…

https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adm8133

[hedda_foil]

1. Don't you need to bury it in an actual bog for that trick to work?

[OKIsItJustMe]

3. In this case, the key seemed to be clay

The type of soil covering the log was the key reason for its remarkable preservation. The clay soil in that part of Quebec had an especially low permeability, meaning that it prevented or drastically slowed oxygen from reaching the log while also keeping out fungi and insects, the decomposers typically found in soil.

[BWdem4life]

2. Isn't this pretty much our solution to every problem?

Bury it?

[OKIsItJustMe]

4. Well if you think about it

Our problem here came from us taking stuff (coal, oil, gas) out of the ground.

This is a way of putting (some of) it back.

The biggest problem I see is that the “Average American” is responsible for about 13 tons of CO₂ emissions each year at this point. (That’s a lot of trees!)

[PufPuf23]

5. The log needs to be grown, harvested, moved and placed in a prepared site.

Landfilled wood and organic materials are a major source of methane from anaerobic digestion by microorganisms. Methane is bled out of some landfills, and even used to generate electricity. Methane is a greenhouse gas of orders of magnitude more than carbon dioxide produced by aerobic digestion.

This idea is preposterous given the scale required and methods required to seal the wood from decomposition. Maybe seal the logs in plastic?

[pansypoo53219]

6. madison has found about 3 bc dug out canoes lately out of the lake. does that count?