The company i'm working with over the summer has run into an interesting problem. We've been asked to test for lime (aka quicklime) in a soil underneath a parking lot. The only problem is that we realzed today that the tests we've been doing cannot conclusively tell us if there's lime in the soil or not.

What we've currently been using is Phenoltheline[sp?], which turns the lime pink on contact. However, lime apparently loses reactivity when left in parking lots for 4 years, so we could really use a new testing method.

Anyone have any ideas?

Put some dilute HCl on the soil and see if it fizzes. Super low-tech, but it might work. Lime is basically ground limestone or dolomite, and the presence of calcite should make the HCl fizz (think back to GE 50). You'll want to test this on some soil samples with various concentrations of lime in them to see if the lime will be enough to make the HCl fizz.

taste the dirt

see if it's lime-y




a dedicated civil engineer would know it by taste alone.

LOL

Damn lime-y bastards!

You're thinking of Geologists.

how the fuck do you know what im thinking of?
I was thinking of civil engineers. take that!

No you weren't. You were thinking of porn. You just happen to say civil engineers.

mmmmmmm....civil engineers....