Re: The blueness of water

[William Beaty <billb@ESKIMO.COM>]

On Fri, 26 Apr 2002, Larry Woolf wrote:

> http://webexhibits.org/causesofcolor/5B.html
> http://webexhibits.org/causesofcolor/5C.html
> http://webexhibits.org/causesofcolor/5D.html

> Water has an intrinsic color, and this color has a unique origin. This
> intrinsic color is easy to see, as can been seen in the Caribbean and
> Mediterranean Seas and in Colorado mountain lakes.

Uhhh.  This reference is screwy.  The Caribbean and Mediterranean seas are
not fresh water.  They're as deeply colored as any salty ocean.  High
mountain lakes, that's different, and I imagine that those come close to
distilled water appearing in nature.

> Pure water and ice have a pale blue color, best seen at tropical
> white-sand beaches and in ice caves in glaciers (green colors are
> usually derived from algae).

Tropical white-sand beaches with "pure" water?  What the heck are they
talking about?  White-sand beaches are caused by coral in the (salty
impurity-filled) ocean.

Sounds like this site was written by the K-12 textbook authors that
everyone's been complaining about.


(((((((((((((((((( ( (  (   (    (O)    )   )  ) ) )))))))))))))))))))
William J. Beaty                            SCIENCE HOBBYIST website
billb@eskimo.com                            http://amasci.com
EE/programmer/sci-exhibits   science projects, tesla, weird science
Seattle, WA  206-789-0775    sciclub-list freenrg-L vortex-L webhead-L