Re: The blueness of water

[kyle <kforinas@IUS.EDU>]

Just to throw a wrench into this- a biologist friend who long ago did
water sampling around the Savana River Nuclear plant claimed that most
of the color associated with water in lakes and in the ocean (blackish,
bluish, slate, greenish etc.) had to do with the particular species of
organic life inhabiting the water (plankton etc.). This in turn was
related to dissolved minerals and nutrients but was also related to
temperature, local climate and habitat.

Cheers

kyle

>   ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Subject: Re: The blueness of water
> Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2002 07:12:32 -0500
> From: Brian Whatcott <inet@INTELLISYS.NET>
>
> See the green cast due to remaining iron imprities?
>
> Brian
>
> At 23:03 4/28/02 -0700, you wrote:
> > Apropos -- of intrinsic color by absorption.
> >
> > Look through a sheet of glass through the longest dimension.
> >
> > bc
> >
> >
> > Larry Woolf wrote:
> >
> > > At 12:13 AM -0700 4/28/2002, William Beaty wrote:
> > > > Heh.  What's your evidence that the mineral impurities in ocean water are
> > > > colorless?  The water is full of dissolved salts.  Just to clarify, we're
> > > > arguing whether their color effects as viewed through a few meters of
> > > > ocean water is significantly smaller or larger than the color effects
> > > > caused by the water itself.
> > >
> > > Since water - fresh or salt - generally appears colorless for shallow
> > > depths, blue-green for a couple of meters depth, and blue for more than a
> > > few meters, I would argue that dissolved salts are not a major effect.  The
> > > salts most likely lead to increased scattering of incident light, which
> > > would affect the path length of light in water before it enters your eye.
> > > Certainly if there is a high concentration of colored matter or
> >
> > cut

--
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 "There are twice as many people in the
        world as when I was born."
                        kf

  kyle forinash   812-941-2390
  kforinas@ius.edu
  http://Physics.ius.edu/
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