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CHEMICAL EQUILIBRIA. “For any of these minerals, there is a certain equilibrium concentration, defined thermodynamically by the concentration at which the free energies of the species on both sides of the dissolution reaction balance exactly or kinetically where the rate of dissolution is equal to the rate of precipitation.” https://lnkd.in/eTGK5eZN View in LinkedIn

SOLUBILITY VARIABILITY. “For three common minerals at ambient temperatures." "Solubilities: " "Halite, NaCl 350,000 mg/L" "Gypsum, CaSO4,2H2O 2,500 mg/L" "Calcite, CaCO3 7 mg/L” https://lnkd.in/eTGK5eZN View in LinkedIn

Summer confetti disperses the rigid idea of deciduous plants dropping their leaves only in the autumn; the expensive process of discarding body parts is ongoing. View in LinkedIn

CHROMATOGRAPHY. “In terms of scale, at one extreme minute quantities of less than a nanogram are separated and identified during analysis, while at the other, hundreds of kilograms of material per hour are processed into refined products.” https://lnkd.in/eVWxgEc6 View in LinkedIn

OUTER SHELL ELECTRONS. “As given by Compton, the explanation of the Compton shift is that in the target material, graphite, valence electrons are loosely bound in the atoms and behave like free electrons.” https://opentextbc.ca/universityphysicsv3openstax/chapter/the-compton-effect/#:~:text=The%20Compton%20effect%20is%20the,wavelength%20of%20the%20incident%20radiation View in LinkedIn

SOLUBILITY CHEMISTRY. “Some minerals simply dissolve in water, dissociating into their component ions. Other minerals react chemically with water, often forming some soluble ions and some insoluble residues. For those that dissolve by ionic dissociation, the range in solubilities spans many orders of magnitude.” https://lnkd.in/eTGK5eZN View in LinkedIn

Round-leafed navel wort, pig’s ear, oblong pig’s ear, narrow pig’s ear, finger pig’s ear, purple pig’s ear; common wild plants have a variety of peculiar names, rooted in a rich history of local lore. View in LinkedIn

MACRO REFLECT MICRO. “Most minerals occur naturally as crystals. Every crystal has an orderly, internal pattern of atoms, with a distinctive way of locking new atoms into that pattern to repeat it again and again. The shape of the resulting crystal -- such as a cube (like salt) or a six-sided form (like a snowflake)-mirrors the internal arrangement of the atoms.” https://www.geologypage.com/2016/03/how-do-crystals-form-grow.html View in LinkedIn

SO ENDS this first of two weekends featuring one aspect of how Nature does large-scale chemistry in aqueous solutions. Biochemists and chemists do these reactions at mg or Kg scales, but geologic processes involve trillions of tons of reactants on the scale of continents. When you survey a landscape remember that it is highly dynamic on geologic time scales. View in LinkedIn

IONIC SOURCES. “In humid regions the important amounts of calcium, magnesium, sodium, and potassium added yearly by rain may be expected to influence the composition of the soil water and thereby the cations in the exchange positions of soil clay minerals. The acquisition of cations by clay minerals may slow down chemical weathering.” https://lnkd.in/ete8CApd View in LinkedIn