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The kids are right: mud is cool

“Mud, mud, glorious mud. Nothing quite like it for cooling the blood. So follow me, follow. Down to the hollow. And there let us wallow in glorious mud!” So sang Flanders and Swan in their hilarious Hippopotamus Song.
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“Mud, mud, glorious mud. Nothing quite like it for cooling the blood.

So follow me, follow. Down to the hollow. And there let us wallow in glorious mud!”

So sang Flanders and Swan in their hilarious Hippopotamus Song. If you haven’t heard it before, it is available on the Internet. And it perhaps requires a peculiar sense of humour. After all, who would write song about the glories of mud?

One answer would be geochemists. Mud is one of the more ubiquitous substances in our environment and it has the power to both tells us about historical landscapes and reshape the land we are living in right now.

In its simplest form, anyone can make mud. All it takes is water and soil or dirt. The proportions depend upon how sloppy, gloppy, or oozy you want the final product to be. When making mud pies, you might want a little more soil. When trying to wash away sedimentary build up, something a lot looser is more appropriate.

Mud is not quite a solid nor really a liquid although it can behave as both. Its non-Newtonian properties can lead to being quite solid when struck hard or abruptly but mud will also gently flow if given time. As a consequence, a mudflow can both flatten a building and creep into every crack of a structure. It can stick to shoes or equipment with a tenacity belying its simplicity.

Mud isn’t just found on the kitchen floor or backyard. It comprises a large component of our environment, being found on the bottom of lakes, rivers, seas, and oceans and it forms massive floodplains, river deltas, and tidal flats. These are often sources of nutrient rich soil such as found in the communities at the mouth of the Fraser. Richmond is built on a delta composed of some of the best mud-based farmland in the province.

Mud also stores vast quantities of carbon, sequestered against future generations. Coastal flood plains are home to vibrant communities of flora and fauna, and more recently people. This can sometimes lead to conflict. Mud can be a killer with mudslides burying thousands of people each year.

Earth has been a muddy planet for well over four billion years since water first condensed on the surface and began to flow into ocean basins. How mud forms and moves has changed a lot over time. The arrival of land plants had a serious impact on geochemistry. The plants broke down rock into finer and finer particles which actually slowed the progress of water over the surface and stabilized sediments. Thick layers of mud developed in valley bottoms.

As the landscape changed and tectonic shifts resulted in the development of mountains, erosion patterns resulted in sea floors blanketed hundreds of meters thick in mud. Over time, many mud deposits hardened into mudrock, the abundant rock in the geologic record and accounting for roughly half of all sedimentary formations.

For the past 5,000 years or so, humans have been a dominant force with respect to mud. As our ancestors cleared land for farming and planted crops, erosion rates shot up. Rainwater washes away some of the top soil with each season. This sediment filled rivers and valleys, sometimes beyond recognition. In many locations along the eastern seaboard of North America, the natural course of river beds lies buried beneath metres and metres of legacy sediment from upstream activities.

Add to this the building of dams and dikes, which trap sediment behind them and prevent its natural flow to river deltas and flood plains, and it is clear we are having a major impact. Further, industrial processes, such as the Mount Polley mine, have massive catchment ponds for their tailings which often end up collecting toxic compounds. Unfortunately, these can sometimes fail with tragic results.

Despite its ubiquity in our environment and its profound impact on the development of civilization which began in the rich, fertile sedimentary basins of the Tigris, Euphrate, Nile, Yellow, and Ganges Rivers, there is much we don’t know about mud.

For example, a very recent article in Science details the bizarre electrochemistry employed by some organisms inhabiting mud. Bacteria can link cells in a manner to form nano-wires up to 5 centimetres long, which are capable of carrying enough current to detoxify soil by removing hydrogen sulphide. They steal electrons from one molecule (such as hydrogen sulphide) and donate them to another molecule (such as oxygen) thereby generating enough power to run their metabolism. Essentially, the mud is electrified and the whole system is an electrochemically-based biosphere. A unique approach to life.

Mud is more than just mud. And it is truly glorious. We might get mad when the kids bring it into the house on the soils of their shoes but it has been shaping our lives for avery long time.