While driving through the farmland of North Dakota, my father would sometimes comment on how the soil seemed less black than when he was farming. He attributed this unfortunate fact to erosion and the depletion of nutrients over years of farming. I remember my father’s comments and that the situation saddened him. But to me, a city slicker, dirt was dirt.
My attitude towards dirt has been vastly changed recently by reading the book Improbable Planet, by Canadian astrophysicist and Christian apologist, Hugh Ross (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2016). The book gives a readable, somewhat technical description of “how Earth became humanity’s home.” It is not due to coincidence. I have appreciated Ross’ other writings about the uniqueness of our planet. I was particularly struck here by his description of dirt and how it became “our most valuable resource.”
Ross’ description reads like an incredible and complicated recipe. First you need the right ingredients. Ross explains that these were introduced by a series of supernovas. Then you need enrichment by a few heavy elements, and coalescence into a sun and planetary system in a stable, spiral galaxy. Ross suggests that our early earth was struck by a Mars-sized planet that formed the moon while enriching the earth’s core with just the right radio-isotopes to keep it hot and drive its plate tectonics, to warm and stir the mixture.
Then God added life. Early lifeforms acted on the rocks increasing their mineral diversity and enabling the enzymes needed for photosynthetic plants to thrive. Plant life provided nutrients to the continental shelves, and the biomass for the fuels that drive our civilization. Eventually a “Biological Soil Crust” consisting of cyanobacteria, diatoms, fungi, algae, mosses, liverworts, lichens, sand, and clay provided an ecosystem capable of supporting all kinds of life – even the farmlands of North Dakota.
Ross’ description of the processes that went into creating dirt made me see things in a new light. There is nothing ordinary about dirt. It is a unique part of God’s creation and a special gift fundamental to our existence. It covers the land and provides us with the food we eat. God gives us just what we need! We shouldn’t take his provision for granted.