The Elements of economic geology

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 1773832379

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-172798

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Gregory, John W. http://d-nb.info/gnd/11683014X

Title:: The Elements of economic geology

Place of publication:: London

Publisher:: Methuen

Year of publication:: 1928

Scope:: XIV, 312 S.; graph. Darst.

Digitisation:: 2021

Collection:: Economics Books

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Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Part III. Earthy minerals

Collection:: Economics Books

CHAPTER XVII MINERAL FERTILIZERS—NITRATES AND PHOSPHATES NITRATES CHARACTERISTIC OF ARID ArREAS—Minerals that are readily soluble in water only occur in large quantities in arid climates. Nitrate of soda (NaNO, Chile saltpetre), which is of great service as a fertilizer, is practically restricted to the almost rainless belt in Northern Chile and Southern Peru. Nitrogen is essential to the growth of most organisms, which are dependent on the few plants that by their nitrifying bacteria can extract it from the air. The volcanic eruption on Krakatoa in 1883 destroyed all its vegetation and soil. The first plants to resettle on the island were those that use atmospheric nitrogen, and until they had enriched the soil with nitrates no other plants could live there. The rotation of crops, the basis of scientific agriculture, depends on the restoration of nitrogen to the soil by a leguminous crop. Nitrogenous fertilizers release ordinary plants from their dependence on those which extract nitrogen from the air. The nitrate fields of Chile lie on a plain, the “ pampa,” between the Coast Ranges and the main chain of the Andes, in a belt 450 miles long, between 19° and 27° S. lat., between 200 and 5000 feet above sea-level, and from 16 to 90 miles from the sea. The Coast Ranges consist of pre-Palzozoic gneiss and schists; the Andes are built of Paleozoic and Cretaceous sediments and Kainozoic igneous rocks. The area is one of the driest in the world. In some places a decade passes without a single fall of rain; in others there may be a few light showers every year; at Antofagasta after several dry years a heavy shower happened in 1910, two days of heavy rain fell in 1911, and more in 1912. The 107

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