The benefits of the use of in situ atomic force microscopy (AFM) in measuring growth and dissolution of minerals includes enabling researchers to examine real time kinetics and isolate specific processes in order to build physically-realistic models of crystal growth and dissolution. Such models must provide testable predictions at macroscopic scales in order to be useful. Here, we present research demonstrating reaction rates on calcite surfaces can be approximated as equivalent to the (104) surface, enabling us to calculate an overall growth rate from our AFM measurements of step speeds and step densities. We find that growth rates are similar to those measured in some macroscopic studies. Disparities from other data sets may arise from differences in the reactive site densities of the seed materials used in the various bulk experiments, but overall suggest that AFM data can be used to predict mineral growth and dissolution at the macroscale.

Upscaling calcium carbonate growth rates from the mesoscale to the macroscale

245th National Meeting (2013)

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