"William W. Plummer" wrote in
news:yPntc.35081$af3.1824427@attbi_s51:


"Not Me" wrote in message
...

"Tom Quackenbush"

| I should also mention that CO is heavier than O2 so the
| atmosphere
| at the bottom of the rat hole will be have increasingly
| concentrated CO levels. If all else fails the critter will have
| one h*ll of a head ache.
|
| C = 12, O = 16, N = 14
|
| CO = 28, O2 = 32, N2 = 28

The real world physics/dynamics is not quite that simple but
sufficient to say CO is heavier than air and will settle to the
lowest level i.e. the bottom of the rat hole.

Brownian motion will cause gases to mix. You don't see the O2 and N2
that compose most of our "air" separating.

But isn't it true that there exists some "heavy" gas that will tend to
collect at a lowest elevation? I don't remember exactly what carbon
monoxide does, but it's possible that I've also heard that it sinks
(compared to say something like helium which obviously wants to rise).

The question is whether CO is one of those gases.