Fluorescent Minerals

To lift my spirits (during  and after my radiation treatments) Dr. Randy (randy_b) sent me all these beautiful minerals. Included were special goggles and a special flashlight. I will update this post later with more information. I just wanted to post this horribly delayed public thank you. Randy also sent me (months before) some butterflies that burst out of a container like snakes from a peanut can. More info to come!

Over the years, I have received so many kind gifts... many of them made by readers with amazing skills. One was a necklace with a clay crow. (I'm not describing it well, but I love it.) Coloring books made by a reader. 

Please! Please! I don't require gifts. I love your emails, your blog suggestions (photos, odd info). Don't think that I love anyone any less or more based on sending me gifts. The only thing I regret not receiving are all those postcards mailed to John Glynn when GoComics had cancelled "Frog Applause". Those postcards helped to bring me back. Some of them might appear here under a label POSTCARDS. I have to re-familiarize myself with this blog. Good thing I recorded my password somewhere... because I forgot it. Please be patient while I get my bearings. In other words, I need to "recalibrate".

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There are three pairs of photos, and in each pair are the same specimens under white light and under ultraviolet light (365nm wavelength, longwave UV, UVA).  Fluorescence is the colored light emitted from each specimen after it absorbs higher-energy ultraviolet light.

Fluorescent minerals in naturally occurring rocks:

There are two sets at two different scales: a set of 10 larger specimens, where the photos are of an area about 10 inches across, and a much smaller miniature set of 9 specimens glued into a box less than one and a half inches wide (35mm).

Along with a range of fluorescent colors, the larger specimens also include examples of phosphorescence (afterglow), tenebrescence (color change), triboluminescence (light from being scratched) and daylight fluorescence (sensitivity to UV from the sun).

Fluorescent glass (made by humans):

The photos of the fluorescent glass show an area about 10 inches across.  The pieces show fluorescence from uranium (bright green), cadmium (yellow), cadmium + selenium (red), selenium (pinkish-orange), cerium (blue), and manganese (yellow-green).  The fluorescence is an unintended result of including in the glass a very small amount of metal ions to add color to the glass (uranium, cadmium, selenium, manganese) and/or to take away unwanted green color from iron in the sand used to make the glass (selenium, cerium, manganese).

--Randy_b