[NewCandle] Return of the son of aluminosquid erratum

[Nick Reiter]

I just sent out SEM and EDS photos to Keith for posting.  As I did so, I saw I had made a typo or labelling error on the photos (and apparently on the EDS screen shots too)

The photos labelled 72 hours are all actually from the foil asample taken at 58 hours.  The squid / anemonies were gone from the 72 hour foil.  My mistake.

n


> The auto-electrolysis of the system apparently begins
> quickly, because within about 2 hours, the green yellow hue
> was seen, as it had been the first time.  I sampled foil at
> 16 hours, 24 hours, 36 hours, 48, 58, and 72 hours.  By 72
> hours, the foil was visibly corroding and bubbles were
> coming on fiercely.
> 
> And indeed, squid were found, in an amazing apparent
> "life cycle".
> 
> At T+36 hours, scattered tiny craters are seen on the foil
> surface, amidst what look like dendritic stains spreading
> out on the Al surfaces.  No visible build up of oxide is yet
> seen.  However, at high mag, in some of the dimpled craters,
> very small (1-5 micron) seeds or straited blobs are seen. 
> By EDS, these have the composition that appears to be the
> signature of the squid - a ternary Al-K-I system.  Some of
> the tiny seeds or proto-squid at this point show the
> beginning of dendrites in a bundle or cluster.
> 
> By 48 hours some scattered fully formed squid were seen,
> though nowhere near as many of them as in the first test. 
> However, it wasn't until I examined the 58 hour foil
> that I finally found an astonishing truth... the squid
> weren't squid... they were uprooted sea anemonies!
> 
> The 58 hour foil showed some wonderful forms, although not
> many - maybe a few per square cm.
>