Polarized-Light Interferometry of Calcium Carbonate Deposition in Moss from a Waterfall on the Niagara Escarpment
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Deposition of calcium carbonate from groundwater was examined on a moss, Didymodon tophaceus, from a Niagara Escarpment waterfall. A spectrophotometer on a polarizing microscope was used for interferometry. A second-order blue interference with an interference minimum around 620 nm was found when moss cell spaces were fully calcified. Filled cell spaces were often surrounded by empty cell spaces. Complete calcification of whole leaflets resulted in progressively higher orders of interference colors and a positive shift in interference minima. Calcified leaflets finally became cemented together, but each retained a weak extinction when rotated. Small calcareous spherulites (mean diameter 15.7 +/- 2.1 microm) were found between leaflets. Spherulites exhibited first-order white interference with a Maltese cross that rotated when the polarizer and analyzer were rotated in tandem. A Nikitin-Berek compensator was tilted at 5.5 degrees to give an interference minimum at 600 nm in the optical axis. Quadrants of spherulites with radii more or less in line with the tilting axis of the compensator had lower (P < 0.001) interference minima (535 +/- 27 nm) than quadrants with radii more or less perpendicular to the compensator (659 +/- 15 nm), thus indicating a radial internal structure. Spherulites were tentatively identified as vaterite.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".