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Investigating Porosity

Name ____________________________
Period __________ Date ____________

Introduction
Porosity refers to materials (like sand, rocks, marbles, or molecules) which have
enough open spaces for water to move through. These spaces are called pores.
Each material has a unique number of pores, or pore volume, which cause the water
to move through it at different rates. In this activity you are going to measure the
pore volume in a one-liter sample of sand. The sand in these activities represents an
aquifer. An aquifer is the porous rock structure that holds water underground. If
we know the porosity of our aquifer and how big the aquifer is we can calculate
the volume of water stored in that aquifer. In an actual aquifer, porosity will
decrease with depth because overlying rock layers cause compaction.
Purpose
In this activity you will measure and compare the porosity of different sediment
samples.
Materials
samples of pea gravel, sand, and clay
mixed sediment
1- 100 ml graduated cylinder
1 - 50 ml beaker for collecting sample
1 600 ml beaker for water
watch with second hand or stopwatch

waste bucket

Pre-lab questions
1. What is porosity? The measure of how much empty space there is between
particles.
2. Compare the four sediment samples. Clay has the smallest sediment size, sand
has the second smallest sediment size, silt is in the middle, the mixed sediment is
bigger than silt, and gravel has the biggest.
3. What is your prediction? Will one sample have more pore spaces than the others?
Which one? If I pour water into gravel, then the water will have more space than
the sand and clay.
Procedure
1. Obtain 40 ml of pea gravel in a 50 ml beaker. Be as accurate as possible - it is
better to be
over than under.
2. Pour 50 ml of water into the graduated cylinder. Slowly add water to the
pebbles until the water level in the beaker has reached 40 ml. The water has
filled in the air space, or pore

space, between the pebbles. Record how much water was used in the data
chart.
3. Repeat this process with the sand and with the clay. Record your results.
Porosity in a Mixed Sample
Obtain 40 ml of the mixed sample and measure its pore space using the same
method as before.
Calculate the pore space for each sample using the formula below:
Dispose your wet samples in the proper containers!
Porosity results
Use the formula below to complete your calcuations
Start Volume - Finish Volume = Pore Space Volume
(Pore volume/Total rock volume) X 100% = porosity (%)
(_____________/40 ml) X 100% =_____________%

pea gravel
amount of water used 50 mL

50 mL

50 mL

Mixed
sediment
50 mL

pore space (in ml)


% pore space
(porosity)

17 mL
42.5 %

29 mL
72.5 %

13 mL
32.5 %

15 mL
37.5 %

sand

clay

Questions
1. Was your hypothesis supported? Explain: No, because I predicted that gravel would
have the higest porosity, but clay instead has a higher porosity percent.
2. Was your prediction accurate? Explain: No, because I thought that gravel would
have the bigger sediment size which would lead to having more porisity, but it turned out
that clay had the bigger sediment size.
3. What was the independent variable? The type of sediment
4. What was the dependent variable? The amount of porosity.
5. What were three constants? The same amount of water used, the same graduated
cylinder to pour the water into, and the same beaker containing the sediments.

6. Identify one source of error for your experiment: There was confusion about if we
were doing the experiment correctly.
7. What was the percentage of pore space in the pea gravel? What does this
mean? 37.5%, this means that there is 37.5 % of pore space between two
separate pores.
8. Compare the pore space for the samples: Clay had the most pore space, sand had
the second most, pea gravel had the third most, and mixed had the least amount of pore
space.
9. Are the samples sorted or unsorted? The only sample that is unsoreted is the
mixed. Explain what this means. This means that everything besides mixed, had the
same thing in all of the containers.
10. What was the percent pore space for the mixed sediment sample? 32.5 %
11. How does this compare to the other samples? It has the least amount of pore
space.
12. Explain how sorted and unsorted sediment affects the porosity of a sample. It
effects because if you have a mixture of different things, then the water has more things
that it has to fight around or throughit to reach the bottom.

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