10 Items Tagged

Dirt

The Earth Room

The New York Earth Room Contains 280,000 Pounds of Dirt

This art installation has been lovingly looked after for decades by a single caretaker.

The Podcast Team August 16, 2025

Funazuka Burial Mound

Once a heap of dirt with a shrubbery on it, this unassuming mound in a parking lot turned out to be an ancient tumulus.

Svärjarehålorna (The Swearer's Holes)

Is the centuries-old enigma of these mysterious "perjurer's footprints," where nothing ever grows, attributed to natural phenomena or to the realm of folklore?

By Air, Land, or Sea, Tiny Microbes Transform Our World

They often get a bad rap, but bacteria prevent erosion, undergird ecosystems, and make artificial snow.

Susanne Wedlich March 7, 2023

Thin layers of peat and silt capture the aesthetic nature of soil horizons in this artistic rendering.

Soil Scientists Dig Deep to Understand the 'Skin of the Earth'

What's beneath our feet is crucial to life on the planet—don't you dare call it dirt.

Mary-Rose Abraham April 12, 2022

The museum is housed in a building that evokes the soil layers its researchers collect, preserve, and analyze.

Wageningen, Netherlands

World Soil Museum

A Dutch museum preserves the world's most diverse collection of vertical slices of soil.

Podcast: Brooklyn Latrine

Join us for a daily celebration of the world’s most wondrous, unexpected, even strange places.

The Podcast Team May 4, 2021

Arcilla de chaco is a mixture of clay, water, and salt.

Arcilla de Chaco

In the Andean highlands, clay makes bitter potatoes more palatable.

Statues drying in storage.

Mud Statues of Kumortuli

The potters' quarter is packed with artists sculpting clay gods with mud from the sacred Ganges river.

Contemporary appearance of the Rammed Earth Pilot House.

Cabin John, Maryland

USDA Rammed Earth House

This suburban house is made of dirt, and almost sparked a revolution in home construction.