Tomorrow afternoon I will start my project by cutting my
piece of coral into five pieces, then putting each one in a different pH; 8.1
will be my control because that is the average pH of the ocean since
industrialization, before then the ocean pH was 0.1 higher.
To be exact, acidification
has caused the oceans pH to drop from 8.179 to the current 8.069. Over time the
pH is expected to decrease down to 7.8 by the year 2100, so my four amounts of
pH will be the oceans pH decreasing over a hundred year span; 8, 7.9, 7.8, and
7.7.
I will measure each piece of coral before putting it in the water, and
twice a week for three weeks. I will also weigh each piece of coral before and
after the experiment, but before I weigh the coral after taking it out of the
water, I will have to let it dry out. I will mix Instant Ocean with distilled
water to create saltwater, then use HCL (hydrogen chloride) with a dilution
equation to lower the pH.
At the end of the experiment, I will record how much
the pH has decreased. By doing this experiment, I will find out how fast coral
dissolves in each amount of pH.
If you go to this URL below, you can watch a piece of coral dissolving in vinegar. The pH of vinegar is typically between 4.25 and 5, so my coral will not dissolve this fast but I thought it was a good video show.
This is great. The vinegar video really gives a good example of what could happen to your coral over the course of hundreds of years with changing ocean pH. Good luck to you on your endeavor. (:
ReplyDeleteBrittnie--you have a good plan here. A couple of things--it's HCl (lower case L, a.k.a. hydrochloric acid); and at the end of your experiment if the coral dissolves releasing calcium carbonate (CaCO3)--the pH should become more alkaline, raising the pH. Which leads me to my first question--what is your coral composed of? is it CaCO3 or something else? Even if it's not CaCO3 it would still be worth investigating the impact that decreasing ocean pH would have on it. I'd also want to know more about your coral--how prevalent is it?--how important is it as a habitat? What organisms are dependent on it for their habitat...these are questions I would expect you to know for your presentation. REALLY great job!--I'm really looking forward to hearing your presentation and would like to get your permission to share your project/results with students in future OCE1001 classes since we talk about ocean acidification.
ReplyDeleteHi Brittnie: What role does the coral play in the Law of Equilibrium? Based on the fact your using HCl to lower the pH.
ReplyDelete