Is the Amazon Forest a man made place?

[Dinner]

I'm not sure I would call native groups that never had contact with Spain "Hispanics".

[The Mad Monk]

Originally posted by Odin
Algae are the world's lungs, but terrestrial vegetation is very important intermediaries in the carbonate cycle that regulates CO2 levels on geologic time scales because of it pumping CO2 into the soil. this increases the amount of CO2 that eventually gets trapped in limestone on the ocean floor.

I think you're a little off there.

The primary depositors of carbonates are marine invertebrates
(including corals, molluscs, and certain types of plankton), followed (distantly) by direct chemical deposition.

I don't recall forest soils being any part of that cycle.

[Dinner]

Most of the carbon sequestration is caused by the depositing of CaCO3 on the ocean floor and diatomaceous limestones are a big part of that, however, the majority are caused by sea water reaching its carrying capacity and CaCO3 (either as calcite or aragonite) precipitating out of solution.

That's normally evaporation driven so precipitation of CaCO3 is highest at the equator and lowest at the polls. The diatoms live every where though so diatom rich CaCO3 deposits are most commonly laid down in temperate zones since it is warm enough for the diatoms to be happy but cold enough where the rate of little dead diatoms stacking up on the ocean floor isn't being overwelmed by the rate of chemical precipitation.

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by Oerdin
I'm not sure I would call native groups that never had contact with Spain "Hispanics".

Why not? It's not like the whole "hispanic" conscept ever made sense.

[Barnabas]

and most of the hispanics you get in the usa are just native americans who speak spanish (sometimes not even that)

[GePap]

To say that because spain could only sustain X number of people so the Aztec empire could only sustain Y is a false notiion ni many ways.

1. Spain is not the most fertile region in Europe, by far.
2. You have to compare agriculture methods and yields per acre. The America's had access to a variety of crops not present in Eursia, such as potatoes and maize.

IIRC Aztec agriculture, while immensely labor intensive, had much greater yields than agriculture in Spain at the time. JUst compare the fact that while the lands directly under Aztec rule were probably smaller than the Kingdoms of Ferdinand and Isabela, they could sustain a City like Tenochtitlan which was far greater than any comparable city in Europe at the time.

[GePap]

http://www.geocities.com/wasicugohome/chinampa.html

Population estimates of the Aztec's island-capital of Tenochtitlan in 1520 range up to 200,000 people, with twice that number in the immediate area and over one million in the entire valley. This population's density and size, larger than any conurbation yet known to man, inspired Spanish chronicler Bernal Diaz del Castillo's famous remarks upon first entering the valley, "Andwhen we saw all those cities and villages built in the water and other great towns on dry land, and that straight and level causeway leading to Tenochtitlan, we were amazed ... Indeed, some of our soldiers asked if it was not all a dream."

The pre-Columbian chinampas' productivity was astoundingly high even by today's standards. Estimated maize yields vary between three and five metric tons per hectare. And two crops could be harvested in the same year. Still today, chinampa harvests have been known to outweigh those from high-tech agricultural research stations. (In 1986 it was a chinampero from Mixquic who
won his nation's annual maize growing contest.) The exact timing of transplanting allowed for the optimal and proper use of the chinampas. Fields were never left fallow, a fact we know from colonial farmers' almanacs. As soon as one crop was harvested, another set of seedlings were put in place. Scarce land was thus not tied up by long-cycle crops growing from seed. Up to four harvests a year on the same plot were often possible. During the fall/winter season, non-frost hardy plants were protected with mats (abrigos)of straw and woven cattails.

[Odin]

Originally posted by The Mad Monk


I think you're a little off there.

The primary depositors of carbonates are marine invertebrates
(including corals, molluscs, and certain types of plankton), followed (distantly) by direct chemical deposition.

I don't recall forest soils being any part of that cycle.

Where does the calcium ions come from? weathered granitic rock. CO2 dissolved in the moist soil as carbonic acid, IIRC, helps disolve the bedrock, releasing calcium ions into the groundwater and eventually to the ocean, at least thats how I think it works.