Australia's Science Forum

This may seem like a silly question , but, are marble chips limestone or marble? I realise that marble is metamorphic formed from limestone, but will this matter for practicals?. We are doing a prac to simulate acid rain, marble chips in soda water and vinegar-see what happens.
Problem is I have run out of "marble chips", I have rocks I can smash up, lots of marble but not much limestone. Help please!!

True it is all calcium carbonate but I would say Marble. Limestone is a lot softer and isn't shiney if that makes sense. the marble chips I have are hard and shiney so go for the marble

Marble chips are calcium carbonate. What is your car park made from? That's where we collect rocks from for this prac!

A quick test is throw a chip in some 2M HCl and see if it fizz's

Marble chips are marble chips, not limestone. Both limestone and marble will fizz in HCL because they are calcium carbonate. How on earth could you run out of them? I recycle marble chips where possible. Just give them a good rinsing, dry them out and put into container labelled "used marble chips". I haven't bought any new stock for years and I still have an unopened bottle from 1988.
Lyn.

Yes marble chips are marble . Like Lynn we recycle ours and I think in thirteen years I have bought one 500g bottle of Marble chips about five years ago to add to my supply and it has just been opened this year and a few chips used. Don't ever throw out your marble chips, wash and label a container "with all correct details just include the word recycled.

Rosalie, there's every chance Pilar's carpark is made from chalcopyrite, thus eliminating the need to create "Ore" for the Copper extraction prac!

Unfortunately it is bitumen otherwise I would be out there raiding the carpark!

Yes I do recycle the chips but we finally seem to have got to the end the supply so I will smash up some of the marble I have for now and will have to order some for next year!
We do have lots of awesome rocks around here and a past teacher was a very keen rock hunter so I have a good supply of rocks for science.

Hi all,
This may sound a little macarbe, but our source of marble chips is from pieces of old headstones. Broken ones sourced from the local stonemason and NOT the cemetary!!! My predecessor picked up several pieces years ago and if ever I need any extra one of the senior boys breaks some off for me.

Our large marble samples also come from the off cuts of headstones. Our local undertaker who also is a stonemason kindly donated them a few years ago. It's great as we have raw and worked samples of marble.