Stalactites and Stalagmites

“Walking in a huge stalactite cave, what was coloured with different kind lights was a peculiar experience.”

Last month, my uncle travelled to China for two week. He paid a visit to the local Furong Karst Cave, an attractive stalactite cave, in Wulong County of southwest China’s Chongqing and shared his experience with me. Exploration of stalagmites and stalactites are just some of the very exciting activities in caving. About 30 different kinds of Sedimentary Characteristics can be found in Furong Karst cave, with an area of 37,000 square meters, which draws attention of expects and tourists. In visiting caves, the most enjoyed and appreciative part is the pleasure of classifying different types and shapes of formations. It was a truly memorable journey. Will you spend time to visit them just to experience and personally see various formations inside a cave?

What are stalactites and stalagmites?

Stalactites and stalagmites are referred to as "dripstones". They are formed by the deposition of calcium carbonate (CaCO3) and other minerals, which is precipitated from mineralized water solutions particularly in limestone type of caves.
Stalactites are a type of speleothem (secondary mineral) commonly seen suspended on ceilings and walls of caves. Stalactites almost always have pointed tips, whereas stalagmites are usually rounded, or even flat.
Stalagmites, on the other hand, are a type of speleothem that develop as they arise from the ground and floor of a cave. Stalagmites are built up from many successive growth layers which are made up of tiny, elongate calcite crystals oriented roughly perpendicular to the growing surface.
Through time, some of the fine shapes would be columns, dogtooth spar, cave pearls, flowstone, helictites and soda straws as well as carrot and curtain shape. If these formations grow together, the result is known as a column. As with all speleothems, they are identified not by their mineral composition, but by their outward form and internal structure. Their natural clock has thus allowed dating of associated paleontological and archaeological finds, as well as records of past climate registered in the stalagmites themselves.




the six most common speleothems with labels.

CaCO3, Calcium carbonate

Calcium carbonate is a common substance found in rock in all parts of the world, and is the main component of shells of marine organisms (corals), snails, pearls, and eggshells. Calcium carbonate is found naturally as the following minerals and rocks:

• Calcite (a crystalline form of calcium carbonate)
• Limestone
• Marble

The main use of calcium carbonate is in the construction industry, either as a building material in its own right (right) or limestone aggregate for road building or as an ingredient of cement.
The trigonal crystal structure of calcite is most common.

How are they formed?

Stalactites and stalagmites have different colors depending on the minerals (iron, copper) that are present, but most of them are brown colored. Different shapes form depending on the activity and interactions among deposits, water, air and gravity. When water, air and rocks interact, these structures are produced.

When rain falls it dissolves some carbon dioxide from the air. If the resulting solution comes into contact with underground calcium carbonate deposits it can dissolve these rocks by reacting with them to form soluble calcium hydrogencarbonate. The chemical formula is

CaCO3(S) +H2O(l) +CO2(aq) → Ca(HCO3)2(aq)

The underground limestone can gradually be dissolved, leading over millions of years to the formation of underground caves.
Stalactites and stalagmites are produced by reactions which are the reverse of those in which caves are formed. If ground water containing calcium or magnesium hydrogencarbonate evaporates slowly over extremely long time periods, this can result in beautiful cave formations made up of calcium carbonate or magnesium carbonate. The reaction is

Ca(HCO3)2(aq) → CaCO3(S) +H2O(g) +CO2(g)

An average growth rate is 0.13mm a year. The quickest growing stalactites are those formed by fast-flowing water rich in calcium carbonate and carbon dioxide, these can grow at 3mm per year.

Type

Every stalactite begins with a single mineral-laden drop of water.

Stalactites:

• Soda straws are very thin but long stalactites having an elongated cylindrical shape rather than the usual more conical shape of stalactites.
• Helictites are stalact
  ites that have a central canal with twig-like or spiral projection that appear to defy gravity. Include forms known as ribbon, saws, butterflies and “hand”.
• Chandeliers are complex clusters of ceiling decorations.

Helictites

Stalagmites:

• Broomstick stalagmites are very tall and spindly.
• Totem pole stalagmites are also tall and shaped like their namesakes.

Totem

You must care for

In touring several stalactite and stalagmite-forming caves, you must follow several rules such as "don't touch the rocks!" .This is generally because the formation is considered to still be growing and forming. Appreciating its beauty is good but following some precautions would be better so as to ensure protection for visitors as well as other creations therein.Skin oils and dirt from the hands can also stain the formation and change its colour permanently.

I had always long for travelling all over the world, exploring the beauties of nature and experiencing all different way of lifestyle. It seems impossible for now. But if you are interested in caving, you must not miss Chamber of Rarities in Brazil and Doolin Cave in Ireland to explore their beauty.

Lipstick: the secret to the perfect pout

“Nowadays, women say they feel naked without lipstick.”

Girls and women, do you have some memories of imitating your mother applying makeup? Or would you sit in front of the mirror and smear your mother's ruby-red lipstick on your lips, and pucker up like the movie and television stars you'd seen? I also recall the days when I was about 16 and my friends --not having arrived at the age where we were allowed to wear lipstick--would sneak a tube of lipstick to school, put it on, and then wipe it off before they got home. This was my innocent memory about lipstick.

Lipstick

Lipstick is part of the range of cosmetics I think most of women can’t be without. Lipstick as history proves it has been used by women throughout centuries in order to increase their beauty and look more attractive and appealing. Sometimes, it may used to make a “symbolic kiss”.
The lipstick we buy today is a firm fatty substance rather like a wet crayon, in a tube. It is applied to the lips to leave a thin coating of colour.
Women use it almost everyday. Rough estimates have been made that we consume at least 4 lbs of lipstick in a lifetime. They are all ingesting their lipstick, but, do you know what you’d eaten?

Its chemical

composition

Lipsticks are simple in chemical composition, however complicated their application or effects. Lipstick is basically made out of waxes, oils, pigments, and emollients that apply colour and texture to the lips. Most of the bulk of lipstick is usually a solid waxy material mixed with nonvolatile oil, so it can be spread easily but remains stiff in the tube. Common compositions use beeswax and castor oil, or carnauba wax.

The preferred formulation of the lipstick in weight percent is as follows:
Waxes: 12%-16%
Oils: 50%-70%
Pigments: 8%-16%
Cetearyl Isononanoate: 8%-14%
Sesquistearate: 1%-5%
Isopropyl hydroxystearate: 5%-15%

----Wax----

This wax helps in shaping the lipstick. The wax used usually contain a mixture of three kinds of wax namely, beeswax, carnauba wax and candelilla wax.

• Beeswax is a natural wax (C15H51COOC30H61 ) obtained from bee honeycombs that consists of Oleate esters of long chain(30-32 carbons)aliphatic alcohols and palmitate, with the ratio of triacontanylpalmitate ( CH3(CH2)29O-CO-(CH2)14CH3 ) to cerotid acid( CH3(CH2)24COOH), the two principal components, being 6:1.


• Carnauba wax is exudates from the pores of leaves of Brazilian wax palm trees.

----Oil----

The oil forms a tough, shiny film of lipstick. The oils and fats used in lipstick include castor oil, olive oil, mineral oil, cocoa butter and lanolin. Castor oil is commonly used oil in lipstick.

• Castor oil is a vegetable oil obtained from the castor bean. It is a triglyceride in which approximately ninety percent of fatty acid chains are ricinoleic acid.
  

----Pigment----

Lipstick gets its color from a variety of added pigments. The dyes have to be insoluble in water, so the color will last. Soluble dyes are first ‘laked’ that is, converted to insoluble particles by treatment with metal oxides. The dyes are carmine, or fuchsine, or cudbear, or eosin, or phloxin, or geranium red. Eosin is a commonly used red dye in lipsticks.

• Eosin is a fluorescent red dye resulting from the action of bromine on fluorescein. It becomes an intense red when it reacts with NH2 groups in proteins on the surface of the skin.
  

Eosin, the red pigment in lipsticks.Gray=Carbon, Red=Oxygen, Brown=Bromine

----Others----

• Antioxidants and preservatives are also added in order to add life to the lipstick.
• Cetearyl isononanoate acts as a plasticizer or wax softener, preventing the lipstick from forming a hard structure and giving a smooth application.
• Sesquistearate can be selected from methyl glucose sesquistearate or sorbitan sesquistearate which provides "fine tuning" of the lipstick's application characteristics.
• Isopropyl hydroxystearate serves as a pigment wetting agent, enhancing color development and protecting the lips.
• Titanium oxide is added for brightness and cover.
• Moisturizers, Vitamin E, aloe Vera, collagen, amino acids, and sunscreen to keep lips soft, moist, and protected from the elements.
  

Vitamin E

There is no danger in the use of lipstick. In fact, for sensitive mucous membranes they are protective. Anyone can eat a lipstick with no more harm than eating a pat of butter.

Make you different

Lipstick heightens the lips, makes them fuller, moister, redder and more alluring.

Lips with no lipstick (sometimes a little staining can occur leaving a residual amount of colour on the lips)

Lips with a matte lipstick
Mattes have more wax and pigment but less emollients for less shine

Lips with a gloss

Glosses have high shine and low colour.

Until now, I still don’t know to use a lipstick. Maybe I will use it in future but not now. The fact, you can’t deny, is lipstick is harmless to us. So, enjoy the magic of lipstick and you may get a perfect lover.

Diamond and Graphite & Sapphire and Ruby: We are family…

“A diamond is forever. Diamond is the lifelong dream of women”, most of the people say.

Recently, I always miss my cousin. I kept thinking back to the day I accompanied her to buy her diamond wedding ring on February. The ruby, together with the sapphire, the emerald, and the diamond are considered of the four precious stones. Those embedded in jewellery have soft shade of colours and glittered attractively in the sunlight; you must have a sudden impulse to own those.
A diamond is forever, it means everlasting love and life. But, it is a lie due to the chemical properties of Carbon. So, what is the relation between glittering jewels and dull graphite?

Corundum
Corundum is a crystalline form of aluminium oxide (Al2O3) with traces of iron, titanium and chromium. Corundum is a very hard, tough, and stable rock-forming mineral. It is one of the naturally clear transparent materials, but can have different colors when impurities are present. Rubies are red corundum and corundum of any other color is known as sapphires.
Corundum is very hard. Due to a Mohs Scale hardness of nine (pure corundum is defined to have 9.0 Mohs), it is the second hardest mineral known, with diamond being the only harder mineral. It can scratch almost every other mineral.

Crystal structure of corundum
It is in the trigonal subdivision of the hexagonal crystal system, which is reflected in the commonly found hexagonal prismatic crystal form.

----SAPPHIRES----

In scientific terms, the name Sapphire refers to all varieties of Corundum excluding Ruby and Emery. In gem terms, deep blue corundum is known as "sapphires". Sapphire is the September birthstone and for the 5th and 45th anniversary gemstone gifts.
Corundum that is contaminated with iron or titanium has a blue color. Sapphire is the most precious of blue gemstones due to its color, hardness, durability, and luster. The most valuable color of sapphire is cornflower blue, known as Kashmir sapphire or Cornflower blue sapphire. Sapphire gems displaying asterism are known as "star sapphires".
The color of corundum can be artificially altered by heating to temperatures between 500 and 1800 °C for several hours, or by heating in a nitrogen-deficient atmosphere oven for seven days or more or radiation. This is done by heating the sapphires. The process of creating synthetic sapphire is known as the Verneuil process which fine alumina powder is added to an oxyhydrogen flame which is directed downward against a mantle.
It is used in many applications, including infrared optical components, watch crystals, high-durability windows, and wafers for the deposition of semiconductors.

Star sapphire

A star sapphire is a type of sapphire that exhibits a star-like phenomenon known as asterism. Star sapphires contain intersecting needle-like inclusions (a mineral composed primarily of titanium dioxide ) that cause the appearance of a six-rayed 'star'-shaped pattern when viewed with a single overhead light source.

----Ruby----
This deep red corundum is known as "rubies". Ruby is the July birthstone and 15th and 40 anniversary stone.
Finely colored rubies are one of the most expensive of all gems, because natural flawless ruby is virtually unheard of!

Natural rubies can be evaluated using the four Cs together with their size and geographic origin.
Improvements used include color alteration, improving transparency by dissolving rutile inclusions, healing of fractures (cracks) or even completely filling them. The most common treatment is the application of heat which occurs around temperatures of 1800 °C (3300 °F).
Other processes in which synthetic rubies can be produced are through the Pulling process, flux process, and the hydrothermal process. Rods of synthetic ruby are used to make ruby lasers and masers.

Indian Star Ruby

Some rubies show a 3-point or 6-point asterism or "star". Asterisms are best visible with a single-light source, and move across the stone as the light moves or the stone is rotated.

" Sapphire and ruby are corundum and have the same properties why they appear in different colour?”

• If both titanium and iron impurities are present together, the result is a magnificent deep-blue color. Blue color in sapphires comes from intervalence charge transfer, which is the transfer of an electron from one transition-metal ion to another via the conduction or valence band. The iron can take the form Fe2+ or Fe3+, while titanium generally takes the form Ti4+. If Fe2+ and Ti4+ ions are substituted for Al3+, an electron transfer from Fe2+ and Ti4+ can cause a change in the valence state of both. The wavelength of the energy absorbed corresponds to yellow light. When this light is subtracted from incident white light, the complementary color blue results. Sapphire blue is apparent with the presence of only 0.01% of titanium and iron.


• Ruby is α-alumina (the most stable form of Al2O3) in which a small fraction of the aluminum3+ ions are replaced by chromium3+ ions. Each Cr3+ is surrounded octahedral by six O2- ions. This crystallographic arrangement strongly affects each Cr3+, resulting in light absorption in the yellow-green region of the spectrum and thus in the red color of the gem.
  

Carbon

Carbon is the chemical element with symbol C and atomic number 6. As a member of group 14 on the periodic table, it is nonmetallic and tetravalent—making four electrons available to form covalent chemical bonds. There are several allotropes of carbon of which the best known are graphite, diamond, and amorphous carbon.

Characteristics

Some allotropes of carbon: a) diamond; b) graphite; c) lonsdaleite; d–f) fullerenes (C60, C540, C70); g) amorphous carbon; h) carbon nanotube.

----Graphite----
The mineral graphite is one of the allotropes of carbon. It is opaque and black. It is an electrical conductor, a semimetal. Graphite is soft enough to form a streak on paper. All the allotropic forms are solids under normal conditions but graphite is the most thermodynamically stable
Thin flakes are flexible but inelastic, the mineral can leave black marks on hands and paper, and it conducts electricity, displays superlubricity.
The two known forms of graphite, alpha (hexagonal) and beta (rhombohedral), have very similar physical properties. The hexagonal graphite may be either flat or buckled. Graphite that naturally occur have been found to contain up to 30% of the beta form, when synthetically-produced graphite only contains the alpha form.
Natural graphite has found uses as the marking material ("lead") in common pencils, in zinc-carbon batteries, in electric motor brushes, and various specialized applications.

Intercalated graphite
Graphite forms intercalation compounds with some metals and small molecules. In these compounds, the host molecule or atom gets "sandwiched" between the graphite layers, resulting in compounds with variable stoichiometry. A prominent example of an intercalation compound is potassium graphite, denoted by the formula KC8.

----Diamond----
Diamond is the allotrope of carbon where the carbon atoms are arranged in the specific type of cubic lattice called diamond cubic. Diamond is the April Birthstone. It is highly transparent and has a very low electrical conductivity.Diamond has a high refractive index (2.417) and moderate dispersion (0.044) properties which give cut diamonds their brilliance.
Diamond is the hardest known naturally occurring material, scoring 10 on the Mohs scale of mineral hardness. Those properties determine the major industrial application of diamond in cutting and polishing tools.
Diamond's toughness or tenacity is only fair to good. Toughness relates to the ability to resist breakage from falls or impacts. A diamond will shatter if hit with an ordinary hammer.
Four characteristics, known informally as the four Cs, are now commonly used as the basic descriptors of diamonds: these are carat, cut, color, and clarity.
Diamonds occur in various colors. Colored diamonds contain crystallographic defects, including substitutional impurities and structural defects, which cause the coloration. Theoretically, pure diamonds would be transparent and colorless.

Color in irradiated diamonds, with annealing (two left stones) and without annealing (right)
The formation of natural diamond requires very specific conditions—exposure of carbon-bearing materials to high en approximately 1650–2370 °F (900–1300 °C).

“If Graphite and Diamond are made only of carbon what gives them different properties?” Notice that graphite is layered. Graphite has a sheet like structure where the atoms all lie in a plane. Graphite is strong covalent bonds between carbon atoms in each layer. But, only weak forces exist between layers. Graphite is a layered compound. In each layer, the carbon atoms are arranged in a hexagonal lattice with separation of 0.142 nm, and the distance between planes is 0.335 nm.

Diamond has a framework structure in three dimensions. In diamond each carbon atom is the same distance to each of its neighboring carbon atoms. In this rigid network atoms cannot move. Diamonds crystallize in the diamond cubic crystal system (space group ) and consist of tetrahedrally, covalently bonded carbon atoms. A diamond is a transparent crystal of tetrahedrally bonded carbon atoms (sp3) that crystallizes into the diamond lattice which is a variation of the face centered cubic structure. Each atom is bonded tetrahedrally to four others, thus making a 3-dimensional network of puckered six-member rings of atoms.

The system of carbon allotropes spans a range of extremes:
Actually, you realized that sapphires and ruby are same compound and have same properties but they are in different colour. Graphite and diamond are made only of carbon but they have different looks and properties. So, don’t be cheated again. In our world, there is nothing all the same and everlasting. Like the diamond wedding ring, it was nothing left, even the love and life…