Today was the day that I found out what kind of gas was inside my column.
With some help from Dr. Sun, I suspected it to be methane, but wasn't too sure.
My column at this point had it's mad reach almost the top of the jar, and my water column pretty much disappeared. Here's what it looked like:
Notice the gas pockets in the soil and the dome-shaped cellophane top?
Here's what the contents of the column looked like through the top:
My mud also looked a bit green...possibly because there are green sulfur bacteria in here?
Anyway, to make sure the gas that was being produced was methane for certain, I had my suitemate film a test. I tested for methane by puncturing through the cellophane with sewing needle, then holding a lighter to the pin-sized puncture where gas was coming out. Here is the video:
The flame turned blue and tripled in height before I took the lighter away from the column.
The pinprick-sized hole became dime-sized:
I deduced that the trapped gas was probably methane and that there were a lot of methanogens in my column.
As suggested by Dr. Sun, I made two columns out of my old one:
- One with oxygen (shaken up and left open, AKA the one with the black lid)
- One without oxygen (left alone and closed)
Let's see how this goes!
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