Sheep Fleece as Geotextile

It turns out that the Romans used geotextiles when they built their roads across boggy areas. Geotextiles are necessary in that situation to keep your gravel from simply squishing into the mud, never to be seen again. Modern roadbuilders use geotextiles made from plastic or fiberglass. But a number of people over the years have used fleece, including railroad builders. And now some trailbuilders in Ireland are using that method to rebuild a trail in a peat bog. They get good results with far less embedded energy.

Irish Times Article


“The beauty of this technique is that you can shear sheep on the side of a hill and put the fleece directly into the track because the wool needs no treatment.”

WOW!!

Pics would be great to clarify but I sounds as if they simply lay the fleece out as if it were landscaping fabric, flat on the ground, like a sheet. And then lay stone on top of it.
Thus would work just like landscaping fabric and prevent the stone from sinking into the soil during high moisture and traffic I assume.
I am guessing it would only be good for 10 years or so before degradation of the wool or absorbing of the fleece by mice and the like removed all the structural integrity of the fleece.

I think the wool lasts as long as the road does. I think the lanolin in the wool fights rot, and I think that it stays waterlogged in those locations. The volunteer in the video says, "It's been used in Britain and Scotland. It lasts forever."

Since making this thread, I have learned that contractors for the Bonneville Power Administration down in Oregon use sheep fleece in the same way. They also use it for erosion control instead of strawbales.