Fluorescence in Diamonds
This is an archive of an excellent post in our Fluorescent Minerals Facebook group by Richard David Armstrong.Blue fluorescent diamond under longwave UV light. Photo credit: Svetozar Simov.There have been a couple posts on diamonds the past couple days, so thought I'd...
Topaz from the Zapot pegmatite, Nevada, USA
A broken piece of a topaz crystal, bluish in daylight, with a surprisingly bright yellow fluorescence under longwave UV light. From: Zapot pegmatite, Gillis Range, Fitting Mining District, Mineral County, Nevada, USA.A miniature piece: 4 x 3 x 2 cm, 49 g.MinID:...
Willemite, Calcite & Dioptase from Gotala, Republic of the Congo
A streak of light green willemite crystal on a calcite matrix with a few, deep green, gemmy dioptase crystals as special guests. The willemite crystals are quite small, between 1 and 2 mm, but are all well formed, translucent, light green in color and there are scores...
Scheelite from Chenzhou, Hunan, China
Little cluster of well formed scheelite crystals. Dark colored in daylight, they fluoresce the typical bright blue under shortwave UV light and a quite nice orange/red under midwave UV light (a bit overexposed in the photo…). The blue shortwave fluorescence is...
Fluorescence Spectroscopy and Zoning of Apatite
At the Rochester Mineralogical Symposium in 2022 Madeline Murchland gave a very nice presentation about fluorescence spectroscopy and zoning in apatite. Here is a recording of her talk.
Multicolor Longwave Minerals
Everybody is familiar with mineral specimens that fluoresce two or more colors under shortwave UV light. Just think about a classical red-and-green calcite and willemite from Franklin. But are there similar multicolor specimens under longwave?? Mark challenged the...
Gaspeite: The Fluorescent Pretender
I’ve known more than one collector who has been enticed by the brilliant blue/green fluorescence of the mineral gaspeite. In fact, under the light of a Convoy S2+ long wave flashlight, this material can produce one of the brightest fluorescent responses of any...
Synthetic Fluorescent Halite
This article was originally published by Stefano Buzzoni on Nature's Rainbow.To produce crystals at home is an interesting experiment and if they fluoresce, could be “magic”. Furthermore, it’s easy and cheap. The only ingredient you have to use in big quantity is...
Gem Tabular Ruby Cluster: An Unique Crystal Habit
Most ruby specimens are either high-priced single/group of crystals on a marble matrix, or cheap massive habit rough from India. Not so here. This cluster of hundreds (or thousands) of intersecting crystals screams color and brightness, and has a delicate, not seen...
Pyromorphite and Plumbogummite – A Midwave Glow
There's been some cornfusion about the fluorescence of pyromorphite lately in the Fluorescent Minerals Facebook Group. I'll try and summarize, but invite others to wikify. For our purposes the nicest pyromorphite comes from the Bunker Hill Mine, Kellogg, Idaho, from...