jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Mar 23, 2021 5:56:05 GMT -5
Been pondering a while... How far off are our rock slurries from clay? There are many videos out there showing how to isolate and purify clay from soils. It's not particularly complex, just suspending and decanting a few times. I've wondered if tumbler slurry could be cleaned up and used as a pottery clay. I have a small furnace for smelting copper and aluminum... Could test fire some small bowls. Clay and slurry are one in the same. Tumble felspar and get kaolin clay, tumble limestone and get gumbo clay, etc etc. Many clays are pure because the rocks where the erosion occurred were dominate. The lowlands of middle Georgia has pure white felspar based kaolin clay deposits 100's of feet deep due the the felspar rich granite mountains in north Georgia eroding for millions of years. Similar clay deposits everywhere in the world. Clays like kaolin are used all over the world as slurry suspensions to capture targeted mineral particles in masse in mining operations. Some clays can be reused for slurries, some only one time before they become 'worn out' or the clay particles become too small to suspend targeted minerals. Virgin clays seem to be popular in pottery applications. Pottery requires a mix of specific clay/sand and perhaps other ingredients.
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Mar 23, 2021 6:39:35 GMT -5
People have made comments about the make up of slurry for years on this forum Ken. There are so many many chemical and ph variations that it is near impossible to know what is causing gas (for instance). Or will their slurry kill grass or not. A mineral rich in copper like malachite should kill the heck out of plants. Granite dust is a fine additive to most plants. Lime would certainly help acidic soil. Depending on the dose, copper can help, especially where soil is acidic (not our problem, where I live). It is in many fertilizers, in form of CuSO 4. It is what gives it the blue color. Copper is also fungicidal. It does cause a problem if it builds up. Actually copper is necessary for plant health (preferably in chelated form). As is molybdenum, boron, zinc, potassium, others. Plants have a funky diet stephan. They can process poisonous metals and remove them from soil and water if said metals are given in controlled doses. Aquatic plants are often used to remove pollutants like metals and excessive fertilizers from soils and water supplies. The plants in this experiment are highly a highly aggressive sagittaria from S America that is efficient at removing potassium and ammoniates from polluted soil/water. Aggressive in that one plant can seed out several acres of wetland soil and generate tons of biomass. Granted it is non-native but one day we will find that clean water is more important than introduced species of efficient pollution removing plants. This one served well for removing nitrate excess in groundwater pollution resulting from military munitions manufacturing. See Milan Tn. groundwater pollution - scary. Same plant 6 weeks later flowering to create large seed pods. The ones growing in slurry were massive.
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Post by stephan on Mar 23, 2021 7:46:57 GMT -5
People use those same micronutrients jamesp. It is true, that certain plants and bacteria can tolerate and sequester more, though. This makes the great tools for remediating pollution. Using plants to sequester excess nitrates is very cool, especially for controlling runoff and preventing more dead zones in our rivers, swamps, lakes and ocean.
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irlcjrohr
starting to spend too much on rocks
If it does not melt, polish it.
Member since April 2020
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Post by irlcjrohr on Mar 23, 2021 7:59:20 GMT -5
How many different buckets do you use? I use 2, pour out the water and let the slurry dry so I can put in the garbage while using the second one. I put my water on the gravel due to the borax. Or I pour the water off on the ant hills near the house. Borax is great for ant control.
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jamesp
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Member since October 2012
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Post by jamesp on Mar 23, 2021 8:29:59 GMT -5
People use those same micronutrients jamesp. It is true, that certain plants and bacteria can tolerate and sequester more, though. This makes the great tools for remediating pollution. Using plants to sequester excess nitrates is very cool, especially for controlling runoff and preventing more dead zones in our rivers, swamps, lakes and ocean. Did wetland mitigation on some crazy projects. Blood plasma process runoff, egg shells, munitions, various mining runoff, typical sewage and fertilizers, PCB's, etc. Of all of them aluminum rich slurries were the most deadly to plants. Typha/cattails were the best for handling aluminum. Copperhill TN was the largest and worst environment ever encountered. Due to sulfur fumes generated from smelting copper ore. Not to mention cutting entire forests down to fuel the massive in-ground furnaces. The scar remains, see Copperhill TN on Google Earth. A big naked scar on clay topped mountains and valleys of high erosion. Soil is still poisoned so terribly that nothing grows in it. Add high aluminum content and it will be a long time before that location is mitigated.
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Wooferhound
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Post by Wooferhound on Mar 23, 2021 8:49:45 GMT -5
Been pondering a while... How far off are our rock slurries from clay? There are many videos out there showing how to isolate and purify clay from soils. It's not particularly complex, just suspending and decanting a few times. I've wondered if tumbler slurry could be cleaned up and used as a pottery clay. I have a small furnace for smelting copper and aluminum... Could test fire some small bowls.
I tried to make some dried Cakes of slurry to see how strong it was, and understand how it would solidify in Drains. It was very brittle and could easily break. I don't have a kiln to try and fire it up.
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Post by stephan on Mar 23, 2021 8:59:52 GMT -5
People use those same micronutrients jamesp. It is true, that certain plants and bacteria can tolerate and sequester more, though. This makes the great tools for remediating pollution. Using plants to sequester excess nitrates is very cool, especially for controlling runoff and preventing more dead zones in our rivers, swamps, lakes and ocean. Did wetland litigation on some crazy projects. Blood plasma process runoff, egg shells, munitions, various mining runoff, typical sewage and fertilizers, PCB's, etc. Of all of them aluminum rich slurries were the most deadly to plants. Typha/cattails were the best for handling aluminum. Copperhill TN was the largest and worst environment ever encountered. Due to sulfur fumes generated from smelting copper ore. Not to mention cutting entire forests down to fuel the massive in-ground furnaces. The scar remains, see Copperhill TN on Google Earth. A big naked scar on clay topped mountains and valleys of high erosion. Soil is still poisoned so terribly that nothing grows in it. Add high aluminum content and it will be a long time before that location is mitigated. Yeah, not much likes aluminum. Nickel is the same. We have a lot of it in CA. Most of it is naturally occurring, from serpentine, but it’s easy to tell, because little grows there, mostly a few shrubby trees and some gases. If you can get it to form a big, though, some of our native carnivorous plants (pitcher plants, primarily) thrive there. As far as pollution, gold mining did a job on some regions that will also take a while to recover. One, where the main issue is erosion caused by hydraulic mining is a State Park now (Malakoff Diggins), but I suspect there is an issue with mercury as well, both natural and human-amplified. Navy and Air Force bases and aerospace r&d sites can also be hard to clean up. It sound like interesting and important work you did.
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Mar 23, 2021 10:47:31 GMT -5
I had a blast doing that work stephan. Not to mention the mitigating plant stock had to be naturally established within 100 to 200 miles of the site being mitigated. This forced me to do some interesting plant collecting trips to some strange locations. Many collection sites were in Florida where wetlands harbor unique critters. And interesting aquatic vehicles were required. Western states present so many naturally occurring hazardous materials on a large scale making mitigation a challenge. And the lack of water for aquatic habitats of which are so efficient in treatment. I worked the SE US. Back in the 90's no one knew much about which aquatic plants could mitigate various substances. It was interesting to have the EPA and high tech universities approach me for data related to such. Just so happened my practical knowledge was quite valuable and the EPA agents, TVA and professors hinted at me to charge accordingly. Plant growth impacts take years to compile data about. Plus they needed to learn about aquatic soils and fertilizers for initial colonization.
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jamesp
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Member since October 2012
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Post by jamesp on Mar 23, 2021 10:53:20 GMT -5
Been pondering a while... How far off are our rock slurries from clay? There are many videos out there showing how to isolate and purify clay from soils. It's not particularly complex, just suspending and decanting a few times. I've wondered if tumbler slurry could be cleaned up and used as a pottery clay. I have a small furnace for smelting copper and aluminum... Could test fire some small bowls. I tried to make some dried Cakes of slurry to see how strong it was, and understand how it would solidify in Drains. It was very brittle and could easily break. I don't have a kiln to try and fire it up. Yes, the difference in 'worn out' clay and clay that was gently eroded and consisted of larger particles by weather over many years. Potters can 'feel' the right clay for their work. Tumbling slurry is one of the finest clays found(i.e. smallest particle clay). Tumbling slurry gets a serious beat down. This is why I use fresh clay for every recharge during step 1. It has better suspension properties. No idea about the particle size in kitty litter but being fired it should be very small.
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Mar 23, 2021 10:58:10 GMT -5
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Post by stephan on Mar 23, 2021 13:53:35 GMT -5
Western states present so many naturally occurring hazardous materials on a large scale making mitigation a challenge. And the lack of water for aquatic habitats of which are so efficient in treatment. Now that's an understatement! Especially east of the Coast Range. And it's getting worse. Speaking of interesting plants, on the coast, the redwoods are responsible for almost half of the precipitation, as they convert fog into "rainfall." As we get warmer and drier, though, there is less fog, and those trees get drier and less fire-resistant. Coupled with built-up fuels from too much fire suppression, that is fueling our recent mega-fires. I'm very concerned for this year. There was so little rain, I haven't seen a single lawn/landscaping mushroom. If you include respiratory hazards in the naturally occurring hazards, our State rock is one of them. LOL!
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Mar 24, 2021 4:02:33 GMT -5
The west is delicate stephan. It seems the wetter a habitat the more resilient it is. It's quite simple. For instance Florida has an over abundance of water and even though it is dryer than ever there is still plenty to maintain large natural habitats. Logging has all but been discontinued in the higher elevations of the Chattahoochee National Forest and the hardwoods have matured and are dense over vast areas because of it. Without creating too much ground fuel for fires. Much of it still a fully functioning temperate rain forest like the NW US. Shade and heavy wet fog is still the norm there. The fires out west must have severe impacts on removing shade and eliminating CO2 exchange. Revegetation seems slower out there than the east. Deforestation is having huge impacts. Welcome to poor practices, natural disasters and over population.
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