Jaanus Terasmaa: How does medicinal mud differ from ordinary mud?
Jaanus Terasmaa, a Senior Research Fellow at the TU Institute of Ecology, explained the difference between medicinal mud being used in Haapsalu and ordinary mud, in his lecture that was filmed in Haapsalu.
Jaanus Terasmaa, a Senior Research Fellow at the TU Institute of Ecology, explained the difference between medicinal mud being used in Haapsalu and ordinary mud, in his lecture that was filmed in Haapsalu.
There is more than four million tons of medicinal mud available in Estonia for medicinal use. According to Jaanus Terasmaa, medicinal mud is a very important resource of the ecosystem, in both the natural and economic sense. "Perhaps new services and health products related to medicinal mud are the long sought after commodity that Estonia, with its unpolluted natural environment, could promote throughout the world," suggested Terasmaa. "Hopefully, we can keep our environment clean and healthy until then."
Jaanus Terasmaa鈥檚 main research field has been paleolimnology and sedimentology. More recently however, his research has also focused on the subject of Estonian medicinal mud and the industrial and human influence on the eco-systems of the small lakes in the county of Ida-Virumaa, through changes in water balance and hydrochemistry. According to Terasmaa, his actions are motivated by the desire to understand and render meaning to the processes happening around us and the cause and effect connections that take place on different scales of time and space. "All of this stems from our concern for the confrontation taking place between the natural environment and human society," explained Terasmaa.
Paleolimnology (from palios = old, limni = lake, logos = education) is dedicated to reconstructing the former conditions, and the history of the development of lakes, as well as changes in the environmental factors (both natural and human-induced). According to Terasmaa, this is an ideal tool to enable a better understanding of the past. "By understanding the reasons for past events, the effects and the way in which changes have followed a certain course in their development, more extensive conclusions can be drawn regarding the reasons for the present condition and the possible scenarios for the development of the ecosystem, of which mankind is also a part," explained Terasmaa.