Liquid mercury

[BK911]

Fascinating stuff.
Swimming pools filled with stuff have been found under pyramids throughout the world.

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1DDdwfRGJ8/

[masraum]

I've read that there's supposed to be a burial of an emporer in China where they created a miniature map of china where they used mercury for bodies of water. My understanding is that the particular burial has never been opened, but I guess there have been some others. Interesting

[mjohnson]

Shiny, too. Handy for doing stuff incorporating gravity and spinny forces.
https://www.popsci.com/science/international-liquid-mirror-telescope/

[dad911]

We used to use mercury in 7th grade chemistry.

I'm surprised that school isn't a superfund cleanup site now.

[Arizona_928]

Can’t be a cerla site if they haven’t investigated it for contamination.

In grad school, the foreigners would dump their chemical waste down the drains. Transition and lanthanides metals. They didn’t care as they would only be there for 2-5 years, mostly 2. That stuff passed right through the treatment plants and into the local river. I don’t think people realize how contaminated our water system is.

[70SATMan]

My wife’s grandmother was born in the Cinnabar mining camps in New Almaden in 1900. She lived to be 101. Man, did she have some stories!

Liquid mercury in a natural state within ore is super rare so, swimming pools filled with the stuff?? Riiigggghhhttt! Wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more!

[70SATMan]

Originally Posted by BK911

..

You don’t find the mining of quicksilver in the new world interesting? They called the area New Almaden after the deposits in Spain (Almaden), one of the largest in the world.

It’s my belief that while liquid mercury was known as a by product of what the ancients primarily used Cinnabar for, the production of Cinnabar primarily to create liquid mercury came after the pyramids’ period. Sure, the ancients would have viewed mercury as a ‘mystery’ and as such, would have been sought after by mystics and the socially elite.

So, production that would have filled cavities large enough to be classified as ‘swimming pool’ or even as large as my hot tub seems incredulous. Add the tie in to ‘pyramids’ (said in a mysterious voice)?? Sure, I’m a skeptic. How many lbs of cinnabar ore is needed to create a gallon of liquid mercury? Now think about the process required.

Were the mercury pools made before all of the deep subterranean structures hidden under the pyramids or part of the pyramid construction?

How’s that?

[Arizona_928]

Essentially, one would float on the mercury pools and not be able to swim in it.

[dad911]

But would diving into said pool hurt?

[70SATMan]

The physiology of the Ancient Swimmers probably allowed for protection against mercury poisoning.

But not against the great mud flood. They were very susceptible to silt.

[70SATMan]

Hey BK. Don’t know whether you deleted your post or a mod did. I had nothing to do with it. Didn’t bother me being called a seagull.

Squawk, Squawk!

[Arizona_928]

Ever belly flop? I would imagine that without sinking.

[70SATMan]

Can you imagine hauling liquid mercury a gallon at a time to fill said pools? That would be a hell of a workout given the weight. Bronze cauldrons.

[herr_oberst]

Come on. During the construction of the pyramids, the Aliens who were doing all the work hauled it in from planet Mercury in giant silos to appease the Egyptian overlords when the cost overruns started getting out of hand. (Mercury is as cheap as dirt on Mercury)

[mjohnson]

Just playing with very rough numbers:

An olympic swimming pool is basically 10x the peak global liquid mercury production and nearly 30x the more recent production quantities.
- "Typical Olympic Pool" = ~2500 m^3
- Hg density = ~13.3 Mg/m^3, or roughly 33k tons
- "annual global production of mercury metal" in Bing search gives
3-ish k tons as 1970s historic peak and 1200 tons in 2024


Dense metals are fun. For years I had a 30# rod of pure tantalum in my office. It was amazingly small! Coincidentally it's almost the exact density of delta-Pu so it made for great physical and radiographic test objects/masks.

[mjohnson]

Sadly, mercury thermometers are uncool.

Quoting NIST, "Today, there is no scientific or metrological reason to employ mercury thermometers for any application..." As of 2011 they would not calibrate mercury thermometers.

I know that we still have the alcohol-bulb thermometers to stick in our various orifices, and I think there are "shiny runny silver metal-filled" versions with gallinstan or some other gallium alloy.

Hg just gets no love anymore. No thermometers. No pressure gauges. No vaccines (ducks head...)

[john70t]

Originally Posted by masraum

I've read that there's supposed to be a burial of an emporer in China where they created a miniature map of china where they used mercury for bodies of water. My understanding is that the particular burial has never been opened, but I guess there have been some others. Interesting

Yes yes.

-Qin Shi Huang Ti means something like 'god of all men' or something.
Controversial early history.
Massacres involved....etc...but that is not really important.
Ghengis Khan's DNA is supposedly in 1/10 of all Chinese or something like that.

-Cruel uniter of early China.

-Builder of much of the Great Wall. Lots of workers buried in the foundation of it.

-The thousands of unearthed terracotta clay statues in LIFE Magazine were originally painted life-like. They were his workers to serve in his afterlife.

-His Pyramid burial mound has gem stars on the ceiling and rivers of mercury below.

-It will probably never be publicly accessible.

[BK911]

Also Mexico

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by dad911

We used to use mercury in 7th grade chemistry.

I'm surprised that school isn't a superfund cleanup site now.

LOL! Yep. We used to push little puddles of mercury around the counter top in the high school chemistry lab. They inevitably ended up on the floor.