Re: Re: Calcium in water?

Dissolved lime (Calcium) in water is what is responsible for
Stalactites/Stalagmites and flow-stone in caves such as those found in
Tennessee, Missouri, Kentucky or in the Southwest as at Carlsbad, NM.  Water,
as it percolates through the rock profiles picks up all the lime it is capable
of dissolving (which is not much), then as it reaches the caves begins to
evaporate, leaving the stone deposits behind.

Something similar is at work in Yellowstone, where the mineral-rich springs
slowly evaporate as they flow over the deposits left by previous water flowing
and evaporating.  Some of those deposits are spectacularly beautiful.

In irrigation systems dependant on wells in parts of Idaho, the mineral-rich
water from wells, used with sprinklers, will leave white to white plus colors
from iron compounds and other colorful minerals on bricks, concrete and
sprinkler pipes.  These can build up to fairly thick layers over a period of a
few years.

One rancher's wife, near Payette, had to wash her dishes periodically in
muriatic (hydrochloric) acid to remove the buildup of pink to orange lime plus
iron compounds, mostly carbonate, deposits turning her china and stoneware
colors they were never meant to have due to the high mineral content of the
water supply.  She wore rather think rubber gloves, of course, in the
washing.

The flavor of that water and the water from the well on one of my uncle's
farms not far from there was something one had to get used to--I never did.  I
had to be desperate to drink it, although our own probably had some of the
same minerals.  I never developed a cavity in my teeth nor broke a bone until
about four years after I had moved away from the area.

The lava rocks south of Boise tend to build up a white deposit on their
undersides due to dissolved lime in rain water evaporating and leaving the
lime behind.

Water in the humid, water rich eastern parts of the US would have other
minerals dissolved in them, especially due to acid rain.  The lime has long
since departed.  The minerals now present are compounds of heavy metals,
responsible for the damage to life in lakes and streams in the areas most
affected.

Neil Mogensen    z 7  in the mountains of western NC

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