Quick rocks from CO2, according to reports in BBC News 9 June 2016 and Science (AAAS) News 10 June 2016 and Science vol. 352, pp. 1312-1314, DOI: 10.1126/science.aad8132, 10 June 2016. An international team of scientists working in Iceland have developed a process called Carbfix, which injects carbon dioxide into basalt. The project is part of a world-wide effort to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in an attempt to fight climate change.
The Carbfix process involves dissolving carbon dioxide in water, producing an acidic solution, which is pumped into basalt rock. The acidic water dissolves calcium and magnesium ions in the basalts, which then reacted with the carbon dioxide to make calcium and magnesium carbonates – solid chalky minerals. The researchers were surprised by how rapidly the carbon dioxide was incorporated into rock. They wrote: “We find that over 95% of the CO2 injected into the CarbFix site in Iceland was mineralized to carbonate minerals in less than 2 years. This result contrasts with the common view that the immobilization of CO2 as carbonate minerals within geologic reservoirs takes several hundreds to thousands of years”.
Editorial Comment: It seems these scientists have discovered something we have been saying for many years: It does not take long ages to make rocks – it takes the right physical and chemical conditions. Let me repeat my byword: ‘not time, but process’! And the more efficient the process, the shorter the time.
The same applies to another CO2 rock-making process – the formation of stalactites. In October 2015 Creation Research set up a stalactite making machine at our Jurassic Ark Outdoor Creation Museum near Gympie Australia. The rate at which the mites and tites have grown has exceeded our expectation, with visible stalactites and stalagmites forming in months, along with a petrified ball of wool.
Evidence News vol. 16 No. 11
15 June 2016
Creation Research Australia
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