A key part of terraforming a dead world is to make soil. Without soil, crops don't grow. In nature on Earth, transforming an igneous flow into rich soil takes millions of years. Mars has an advantage because it's pulverized by meteorite strikes and partially hydrated. However, growing a fertile soil will take time.

In 2010 we started a simple experiment in an aquarium. This is a proof of concept experiment, to demonstrate acid from peat can convert rock dust to soil. To view the original objective, justification and calculations, click here.

Our simple experiment used a sample of live sphagnum moss from a peat bog in southern Manitoba. Many thanks to Premier Horticulture, producers of PRO-MIX, PRO-MOSS, and SOGEMIX. This is grown in an aquarium with rock dust, and a water pump to circulate water through the dust. The objective is to see if acid from the peat will convert the rock dust to soil. We believe the acid will decompose igneous minerals into hydrated minerals: feldspar, olivine, bronzite, chromite, and augite will form different types of clay, releasing sodium, potassium, and calcium. These are fertilizer. Igneous apatite will dissolve to calcium and phosphate. Mars probes have found calcite (calcium carbonate) and dolomite (calcium magnesium carbonate), which on Earth form limestone. These will lime the soil, turning it alkali, but measurements only show Mars soil only has about 3.3% to 3.7%. A type of Algae grows in symbiosis with peat moss, consuming fertilzer released from rock by acid from the peat, but algae also fixes nitrogen from the air, providing nitrate fertilzer for the moss.

It started with a standard 10 gallon aquarium. Then an under-gravel water filter, which is just plastic with slats too narrow for aquarium gravel to pass. The filter has a riser tube to lift water. Normally this lift tube has a hose to pump air down, the bubbles lift the water. But peat doesn't like aerated water, so we installed a water pump instead. The riser tube was cut, the water pump has a foam filter on its bottom so the filter was sealed to the top of the tube with duct tape. Yes, duct tape does stick under water, the trick is you have to apply the tape while it's dry. The pump had a venturi on its outlet to aerate water; that was removed and a simple hose installed. A 1 inch deep layer of aquarium gravel was poured over the plastic under-gravel water filter. To ensure no contamination we used natural gravel, no die or other colouring. And we chose gravel that doesn't have any limestone; that would alter water pH and water chemicals. Then an entire bag of rock dust was poured over the gravel. This was 10kg of glacial rock dust, ordered from a garden centre and shipped from British Columbia. Then 10 litres of steam distilled water purchased from a grocery store. A Corel brand saucer was first placed on the dry dust, the water was poured over the saucer to prevent digging a hole in the dust. Corel is a brand of Pyrex glass, so again no contamination. When the water level approached the surface of the rock dust, the saucer was removed. Then the live peat was removed from the green plastic garbage bag in which it was delivered from the bog. A section of peat to fit the aquarium was torn off by hand, then laid on top of the rock dust. As you can see from these pictures, the peat was quite thick. The water outlet hose was installed in the pump, then laid over the peat. All remaining water was poured onto the moss.

To prevent an electrical short, the pump was positioned so the electrical cord and motor are above water. The foam filter was submerged, but this resulted in the pump impeller being slightly out of the water. The pump was started by "priming the pump", which means pouring some water down the hose so the pump has something to work with. Suction then pulled water up. The pump has a water flow adjustment, which is just plastic to obstruct water flow into the pump impeller. This was set to the slowest flow setting, maximum obstruction to water flow. An aquarium hood covered the experiment to prevent dust contamination. A fluorescent lamp in the hood provided continuous illumination. The fluorescent tube that came with the hood was daylight spectrum. Initially the lamp and pump were just plugged in for continuous operation.

The experiment was started August 5, 2010. The following day bubbles were found in water from the outlet hose, so the hose was sealed to the pump body with house exterior crack seal putty. On August 13, we installed a timer for the light. This let the moss rest at night. To keep the conversion process quick, the timer was set to turn off only 4 hours each night, from midnight to 4am. The pictures were taken August 19, 2010.