Update 11/19/2008

There has been a lot of activity in both of my columns since my last post in October. These changes became evident in late October/early November and have been less pronounced since then. The column containing the pond mud shows some definite layering as shown in the first picture below.

This picture shows the side facing away from the light of the pond mud column. The water appears a reddish-brown from the outside of the column, but, once the plastic is removed from the top, the water itself is clear, the sides of the column in the water are lined in green, and a brown/green film with bubbles floats atop the water.

At the water-sediment boundary there is a thin section that is a whitish color. Below the whitish line, the sediment is light brown with swirls of black throughout. Although it is not apparent by just looking at the column, the picture shows a good amount of green throughout this layer also. At the bottom boundary of the light brown layer, there is a distinct thin layer of white. Finally, the sediment is black at the bottom of the column.

There is no significant difference between the side facing toward the light and the side away from the light other than the location of the layers. As can be seen from the picture, the bottom, black layer is about two-thirds down the column on the side facing away from the light. On the side facing toward the light, the final layer is not even halfway down the column.

It is important to note that, when the column first presented some noticable changes in late October/early November, there was a strong odor emitted from the column when the plastic top was removed. This odor is almost not detectable at this time.

The column constructed of the river mud changed as well (and more than I thought it would). The first picture below is one of the side that faced toward the light. As was the case with the pond mud column, the bottom layer which is also black is much higher for the side facing the light than the side facing away from the light.

The water in this column was distinctly brownish-red both from the outside and when the plastic top was removed as seen in the picture below. There was some brownish-red sediment on the plastic as well.

The layer at the water-sand line was a deep red color. The sand below the water looked much like it did when it was first placed into the column except that the layer had a definite green tint to it (the picture shows this). Finally, as mentioned previously, the bottom layer of the column was black like the bottom layer of the pond mud column. This column also emitted an odor when it was changing a few weeks ago that has lessened as of this update.

Both of my columns leaked several times during the course of this experiment (and ruined two windowsills). During the day, the plastic bellowed upward presumably from gases emitted from the column into the air space and water leaked out creating white, crusty streaks on the outside of the columns. Most recently, this has been occurring with the second column (river mud) much more exclusively.