My report is comming along slowly. It is extremely time consuming. Blogging this is taking up my report writing time so I am going to stop now because it takes me too long to think what to write here anyway.

slow trooper.

second samples

Organic content

:(

second samples moisture content

goes blurry when larger and cant read. my computer at home doesnt like this website.

pics sample spots supposed to be blogged ages ago

finally working

results tables supposed to be blogged earlier

also left results tables at dads house because I didnt have my memory stick with me and email wouldnt work but will also blog them later today.

pictures supposed to be blogged earlier

blogger didnt work and I left the pictures on the computer at my dads house, but I will blog them later today.

14/5/09 risk assesment

Please turn your head 90 degrees clockwise and squint (a lot) to observe this risk assesment.

10/5/09 first samples possible parent rock, texture and colour, evidence of pollution

The colour of the soil is dark brown and most of the samples are sandy in texture which is why I think the parent rock is sandstone, some may be mudstone though.
The creek isnt very polluted at all, I only found evidence of part of a plastic bag at one sample spot. There is a lot of rust in the water though, I think it comes from the drainpipe which flows into the creek. I do know that there is pollution further down from where I tested, garbage mostly.

10/5/09 first samples phosphate amount

Phosphate Amount

To test the amount of phosphate present in each water sample I dipped the tip of a little stick of paper into the water which was pink on the tip and waited for 3 minutes until it changed colour, if it changed colour. I then compared the colour of the tip of the stick with the scale on the bottle to determine the amount of phosphate present for each sample.
Sample spot 3 contained the most phosphate in the water.

10/5/09 first samples soil and water pH

The soil samples are more basic than the water samples which are more towards neutral.
To get an accurate result I tested the pH of the first soil and water samples twice using a pH probe and the results are the average of these 2 tests.

10/5/09 first samples salt

Salt Content

For these experiments I needed to use silver nitrate which is toxic so I used a waste bucket for the used silver nitrate so I didnt throw it in the bin or down the sink.

For the soil salt test I had to set up a retort stand with a funnel and filter paper to filter the pure water with soil mixture through. I then had to add one drop at a time to the beaker containing the filtrate to see how many drops of silver nitrate it would take for the filtrate to turn milky.

For the water salt test all I had to do was add one drop at a time of silver nitrate to the beakers with my water samples in them to see how many it took to turn milky.

The soil salt test was the most time consuming of all the tests in the lab (excluding using the incubator ie. moisture and organic content test).

10/5/09 first samples organic content cont..

On Monday 4th May I put the first soil samples back into the incubator after the moisture content tests. I put them in at 60 degrees celcius at 2.30pm and on Thursday at 1.05pm I took them out. The resuts are as follows:

Organic Content

As you can see, sample spot 4 had the most organic content at 4.60% and sample spot 1 had the least organic content at 1.76%. This seems accurate because sample spot 4 was near a lot of trees and shrubs which meant a lot of roots were in the soil whereas sample spot 1 was closer to water and the soil was sort of sandy.

10/5/09

My first water samples are all not turbid. The water is pretty clear and I can easily see the 3 lines on the bottom of the turbidity tube when the water is filled up to the top.

7/5/09 organic comtent test first samples

When I took the samples out of the incubator, after 2 days at 60 degrees it looked as though there was still organic content in the soil like roots and leaf bits. I weighed them but nonetheless they were lighter than the dry soil so it must have worked. I don't have much time now so I will put the table up later.

5/5/09 results first samples

I left the samples in the incubator at 40 degrees celcius from Friday at 2.15pm until Monday at 2.30pm which is a total of 72 hours and 15 minutes.

All my samples contained between 30 and 45% moisture which is a pretty high amount. I did collect the samples fron near the waters edge which explains the high moisture content.

3/5/09 map of sample locations

This map shows the approximate locations of my 5 sample places in relation to Lime Kiln Bay and Jinna road. I will take closer pictures to show the surroundings.

3/5/09 First soil samples: incubator

3/5/09
Yesterday I put my first 5 soil samples into the incubator.
I used an evaporation dish for each sample, electronic scales to weigh the soil and evaporation dishes and the incubator. I drew up a rough table on which noted down the basin number and weight of the basin, basin and wet soil, and wet soil on its own. I also included in the table but am yet to determine the weight of the dry soil and basin, dry soil on its own, weight of moisture lost, and percentage of moisture lost.
I had to set the incubator to 40 degrees celcius instead of 60 because I am leaving the samples in the incubator over the weekend instead of only a night. On Monday I will be determining the moisture content of the soil samples by subtracting the weight of the dry soil from the weight of the wet soil and subtracting the weight of the evaporation dish from that value for each sample. I cannot test the pH of the soil or salt content for each sample because I didn't order any equiptment for Monday.