Phosphates

[3] This is a picture of freshwater that has phosphates in it. __** What are Phosphates ? **__        Phosphates are chemicals that plants and animals need to survive. Phosphates are major water pollutants in water, like steams, lakes, rivers, and other large bodies of water. Phosphates cause large water weeds and aglae in the water. Animal waste, phosphorous bed rock,and garden fertilizers cause phosphates, then when it rains the fertilizer runs into the body of water and then cause's phosphates to form.[1] When fertilizers get washed into waterways algae reacts and creats more of itself. When the algae dies it takes away a lot of the dissolved oxygen in the water making fish and other waterlife die.    If you were testing cultrual eutrophication(the process of ageing of a lake or bay) you may expect to find some algal bloom in the water with a fish smell and not that much dissolved oxygen. If the algae is blooming then there may not be a high phosphate level. During the time span of eutrophication there is an increase of nutrients causing more plants to grow.[2] A phosphate can occur from the weathering of rocks, but without phosphates waterlife is hard to grow. Some kinds of phosphates can really harm living things but other kinds of phosphates can be helpfull to plants and animals so there can be benefits and disadvantages too.[3]
 * __ How do phosphates affect the environment?  __**

__** How does this relate to Gray Area? **__ Phosphates have been tested in James Pond and the outcome was that the levels were to high. Because some types of plants need phosphates to survie, and there was to high of level that resulted in to many plants growing. Then because of the large population of plants when they would die it would take away the dissolved oxygen in the water, not leaving enough for fish to live.[4] __**What is Phosphorus Bed Rock?**__ Scientist use phosphate rock because of its phosphorus content. Phosphorus was discovered in 1669 by Hennig Brand. Phosphorus is a very important part of our life because you can find phosphorus in your DNA and RNA molecules. This can also help your teeth and bones develop. Phosphorus is the English word for phosphoros witch is Greek and this means bringer of light. Normally when you would find phosphorus they would call it phosphorus rock. You can also find that there would be phosphates in this product. [5] [5] This picture shows a landfill of phosphorus rock witch is explained in the above paragraph. [1]Source:Phosphate fertilizers & water pollution,Plantalk [2]Source:What are Phosphates?,Wilkes University<http://www.water-research.net/Watershed/phosphates.htm [3] Sorce:The Dirt On Derergent Phosphates, August 28,2008,Simplehuman[|blog.simplehuman.com/ 2008/08/the-dirt-on-det.html] [|__Remove frame__] [4]Sorce: Kummer,Katie__,Enviromental Detective notebook, Cincinnati, Nagel Middle School 2008__ [5]Sorce:The encyclopedia of earth,january 21,2008[|www.eoearth.org/article/phosphete_rock]