Aside from the carbon sequestration aspect, "burying" charred biomass is very interesting from a standpoint of improving soil quality, as mentioned briefly in t

Aside from the carbon sequestration aspect, "burying" charred biomass is very interesting from a standpoint of improving soil quality, as mentioned briefly in the article--though it's not really burying so much as churning it into the topsoil. As an illustration, it's now known that the rich, fertile soils of the Amazon river basin are actually man-made, via a process of soil enrichment thought to involve burying smoldering wood to create charcoal, then breaking the char up and mixing it into the soil along with manure and other organic waste. The natural soil of the Amazon is actually very poor and infertile otherwise! See also: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=934117 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=934117 (I commented there as well along similar lines) Related articles on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_preta http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_preta http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biochar http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biochar