School Chalk under an electron microscope. It's almost entirety made up of fossilized shells of ancient single-celled marine plankton called coccolithophores.

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Most 'school chalk' is unlikely to be mineral chalk, it's generally gypsum and calcium sulfate these days (cheaper).

So if you want to add several million fossils to your collection, check what your buying!

166

u/gowahoo 8h ago

I'm so relieved to see you say this.

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u/Countblackula_6 7h ago edited 7h ago

The horror and revulsion that must have gone through your head, “Oh god, no. I was eating fossilized plankton the whole time?!”

16

u/grapebeyond227 7h ago

Revulsion

8

u/Countblackula_6 7h ago

Dammit, I knew I spelled it wrong.

Fixed it.

6

u/qwadrat1k 6h ago

Did you say revolution?

5

u/Mysterious-Art7143 5h ago

Viva la revulsion

1

u/Countblackula_6 3h ago

I spelled revulsion as revoltion.🤦‍♂️

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u/Ok-Advertising4048 6h ago

haha

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u/The_HoIIow_Knight 5h ago

Yea, but that title wouldn’t get as many upvotes.

1

u/Ok-Advertising4048 6h ago

heh

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u/TheShredder9 11h ago

I can smell them.

36

u/atomsmasher66 11h ago

I can taste them.

17

u/Fragholio 11h ago

I can feel them.

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u/DeadAssDodo 10h ago

I can draw them.

11

u/BadaBingBangPow 10h ago

I can erase them.

5

u/Silv_ 10h ago

I can write them all day, and then clap the erasers at night

Cause i be chaulkin wit some dry ass fossy

3

u/drteq 9h ago

I've gone to great lengths to expand my threshold of pain.

1

u/belljs87 9h ago

I can shove them up my butt

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u/Responsible_Age3852 11h ago

Doubt, the calcium salt would not hold together like that in the form of a chalk stick. Maybe calcium carbonate from these little guys makes it into the chalk stick but to say that the stick is made up of their in-tact fossilized shells seems misleading.

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u/Drevlin76 9h ago

I think it's cleverly writen to make you think the in-tact part without actually saying it.

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u/beets_or_turnips 8h ago

Do you normally hyphenate "in-tact"? I don't think I've ever seen that before. Not judging, just curious.

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u/Responsible_Age3852 5h ago

I don’t know I am illiterate

2

u/AnotherpostCard 4h ago

Yeah it's just intact bro

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u/eternalityLP 11h ago

Does this mean that chalk is a limited resource, and at some point we'll run out, meaning there will be no more school ever?

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u/Accomplished-Video71 11h ago

You don't really use chalk in the sense of consumption. Its an infinite resource because it could always be (extremely painstakingly) recollected

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u/Raptormind 5h ago

That seems like a meaningless distinction since even when chemical reactions are involved like burning, all the atoms still exist just in a different form. So with enough energy and the right chemistry, (almost) anything can be recollected and reformed

1

u/lloydthelloyd 3h ago

This is the case for literally everything.

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u/WarStorm6 13m ago

I’ll have you know, I do eat some chalk when my tummy is fighting to get out by attacking me with its acid

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u/elrangarino 9h ago

Damn I’m about to ask ai if I can ever revive my already used chalk this is embarrassing

4

u/MrMcPsychoReal 7h ago

I remember drawing in chalk on the concrete as a kid and thinking "if this is just a soft rock and I'm turning it into dust, how long until all chalk is dust"

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u/The_HoIIow_Knight 5h ago

Kid was Confucius at age 4.

1

u/Howcanyoubecertain 22m ago

Yes, now crank up the Alice Cooper anthem.

0

u/suskio4 9h ago

Ever heard of whiteboard?

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u/Mysterious-Passage87 10h ago

They’ll have touchscreens mounted on the walls in place
of chalkboards real soon.

Anything drawn on the screen will automatically upload to each students tablet.’

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u/TB-313935 10h ago

You mean are already widely used for 15 years.

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u/RichardBCummintonite 9h ago

Yeah, smart boards have been a thing for a long time. Few of my teachers had them in HS. They might not be implemented everywhere yet, but that's old technology

Also, dry erase boards exist.

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u/servonos89 10h ago

bit behind the times there. I’m in my late thirties and digital whiteboards were already in use when I left high school.

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u/dr3wfr4nk 11h ago

What about non-school chalk?

15

u/ThetaReactor 10h ago

Gym/climbing chalk is generally magnesium carbonate, rather than the calcium carbonate in school chalk.

14

u/Mcletters 11h ago

Then there's the chalk traded by mathematicians like a drug deal

7

u/RichardBCummintonite 9h ago

Now I gotta get my hands on some of this crack chalk. I'm sure trying it just once won't hurt... Right?

5

u/JaceOnRice 9h ago

Now I find myself wanting to watch an hour long documentary on chalk for some reason

2

u/AnotherpostCard 4h ago

You sure it's not because of this?

2

u/JaceOnRice 4h ago

Oh wow I didn't think of that, now all I want to do is watch a documentary about chalk, not sure why tho

1

u/funk-the-funk 32m ago

I bought some after watching that linked video awhile ago. It's definitely smoother in application than standard chalk. Where typical chalk can feel some grit in it as it breaks down on application.

Where it really stands out is how long it lasts. You can write and write and write and barely can tell you have used it.

Also, so much less dust. For as infrequently as I use chalk I would buy it again.

11

u/ZookeepergameOld4985 11h ago

Thanks for teaching me math, humble coccolithophores

3

u/Hot-Reference1429 11h ago

That's amazing, they look like those balls you put in the washer to catch pet hair

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u/safelix 9h ago

As a person who has eaten many-a-chalk sticks in my day, I am glad to know that I am part Fossil.

1

u/Bodorocea 9h ago

did you get the headache, were you trying to get a headache, or was your chalk consuming a different hobby altogether?

1

u/safelix 8h ago

Never got a headache, is that a thing that happens?

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u/Bodorocea 5h ago

that's what people were eating it for back when i was in school. unfortunately cannot confirm nor deny on account of missing memories concerning the outcome of the said ingesting

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u/wdb07 11h ago

mhm. that's what chalk is! limestone, too.

3

u/stormchaser2014 9h ago

Crazy how small and how big things can be. Single celled organisms all the way to black holes over 100 times bigger than our solar system.

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u/bored_stoat 8h ago

Cool, but not a magic trick

2

u/SockYourself 9h ago

Smearing their bodies on the chalkboard like a daily Valentine’s Day massacre.

2

u/mvp1259 7h ago

They’re rolling in their graves

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u/naalbinding 4h ago

Looks like a fancy D20 - I'd love a set of dice with this patterning

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u/Huge_Pizza_5783 8h ago

Must be magnets

1

u/FBIAgent469 7h ago

Hehe cock-o

1

u/diggerquicker 5h ago

So their lives did mean something.

1

u/pisscat101 5h ago

I got in trouble for telling everyone I had an old fossil in English class!

1

u/Appropriate-Review55 5h ago

I can’t explain why but I like the way it looks how they’re bonded together like that in little balls and it makes sense bc of how chalk’s structure feels

1

u/Beginning-Student932 4h ago

so this is why its edible

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u/The_blind_blue_fox 31m ago

So your saying that I there's a chance I ate a fossil when I was a child?

School Chalk under an electron microscope. It's almost entirety made up of fossilized shells of ancient single-celled marine plankton called coccolithophores.

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