Phosphorus Fields

Phosphorus and nitrogen fertilizers drive modern agriculture, but they are also poisoning the planet.

By Michael Tenneson
Nov 9, 2009 6:00 AMNov 12, 2019 4:21 AM

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From the air, they stand out as enormous iridescent white rectangles filled with translucent blue-green ponds. Bizarre and unearthly, these deceptively beautiful structures, known a gypstacks, look like something that might show up on Mars or Europa. In reality they are found mostly in west central Florida, the unfortunate result of mining phosphorus to make fertilizer.

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