Happy #WorldSoilDay ! I realize that I've created so much soil-centered #Sciart that I could share quick tweetstorm of some of my faves # 1) a 3D montage of my efforts to create to-scale models of roots, hyphae, and soil microbes for @EcossNau to illustrate this Dark Universe...

..at #2) (not really ranked, tho!) a #SciArt portrait of the intricate Hartig Net made of ectomycorrhizae hyphae snuggling between root cells to exchange nutrients, for research by @c_terrer @BruceHungate @EcossNau https://science.sciencemag.org/content/353/6294/72

a third piece for #WorldSoilDay is my #Sciart for research by @Dr_Bo_ et al, modeling a hypothetical loss of all AM soil fungi in the Serengeti: lessened P uptake by plant roots would mean the loss of HALF of herbivores and ALL large predators (!) https://news.nau.edu/serengiti-food-web/#.X8v_lh17lTY

of course #WorldSoilDay should also mean celebrating how much soils teach us by preserving the past: my #Sciart #paleoart of the Rhynie Chert ecosystem for @CStrulluDerrien is based on fossil soil that was hardened into sinter by water from hot springs https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2019/january/a-tiny-fossil-amoeba-is-helping-us-to-understand-how-plants-firs.html

#Worldsoilday Permafrost is one of the most visible examples of "soil as Past" when it thaws and collapses, revealing its Ice-Age histories, essentially excavating giant cross sections of time: my #Sciart for @EcossNau shows microbes "exhaling" thawed soil carbon to the skies

#WorldSoilDay thaw of frozen soils worldwide changes ecosystems as layers of carbon that have lain quietly for millennia suddenly come alive and mobile, sinking and sliding away to escape into rivers, seas, and the air. My #sciart of this for @EcossNau https://phys.org/news/2020-06-stocks-vulnerable-carbon-high-permafrost.html

#WorldSoilDay soils of course store things, hide things, keep things...until they don't! The #anthropocene can make soils relinquish carbon: in my #Sciart for @EcossNau, "legacy Carbon" in boreal soils is burnt up by increasing fire intensity and frequency https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2905/boreal-forest-fires-could-release-deep-soil-carbon/

#WorldSoilDay soils can be a deep-storage vault, but these vast ecosystems also "digest" the matter they hold in various ways: in my #Sciart for @EcossNau, soil fungi breaking down Lignin influence many other processes in "keystone" fashion https://www.researchgate.net/publication/327166611_A_keystone_microbial_enzyme_for_nitrogen_control_of_soil_carbon_storage

#WorldSoilDay2020 As my final tweet of this thread, my #sciart reminder that soil mediates so much of life: it's the ground on which we walk, the earth that grows our food, a skin for the planet, forever trading matter with its sheath of sky. It is worth our study and our respect