Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The creation of an artifically-generated, sustainable ecosystem on a lifeless planet.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Coined by Robert Haynes in 1990, from eco- + -poiesis.

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Examples

  • The greening of Mars required two different kinds of planetary engineering: crude terraforming, to raise the surface temperature and atmospheric pressure to a plausible threshold for life, and ecopoiesis: using microbial and plant life to condition the soil and oxygenate the air.

    Spin 2005

  • But there were many possible routes to ecopoiesis, many candidate organisms, from rock-dwelling bacteria to alpine mosses.

    Spin 2005

  • After we ordered she turned her head, listening as fragments of conversation — words like "photodissociation" and "cryptoendelithic" and, yes, "ecopoiesis" — spilled over from crowded tables, journalists rehearsing the jargon for their next day's work or just struggling to understand it.

    Spin 2005

  • The Spin had given us the necessary leverage for a long ecopoiesis.

    Spin 2005

  • There were more launches during the spring and summer of that year, surveillance packages that spent months in high Earth orbit and returned with visual and spectrographic images of Mars — snapshots of the ecopoiesis.

    Spin 2005

Comments

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  • The Martian colonial thesis

    Includes some challenging pieces,

    So develop a taste

    For personal waste -

    The menu of ecopoiesis.

    October 30, 2015