“Chameleon” Sodalite

A pocket of rare green Sodalite was found in an area within the Illimaussaq Complex (exact location withheld) during the summer of 2001. We mined all of the material and eventually shipped it back to the states. Most of the material is vibrantly fluorescent - orange, orange and green, and some three color with a bluish white mineral. Further exploration resulted in no new finds and to our knowledge there simply is no more of this material left.

Perhaps the most amazing property of these specimens are their intense tenebrescense. Once removed from the UV light, they exhibit an intense color change from the natural green to a deep purple. This color lasts from minutes to hours, depending on the piece and the brightness of the natural light.

While photographing individual specimens for sale I noticed one that did not have the normal brilliant orange glow, but fluoresced a “burnt orange”. At first I thought it was a failure of the camera, but upon reinvestigation, the piece truly showed the rusty red color. (It fooled me for awhile because it kept changing color!)

This piece has 4 states of color:

• green under normal lighting
• orange fluorescence upon first exposure to UV
• rust fluorescent tenebrescense
• purple tenebrescense on return to normal light

Thus - we call it a “Chameleon Sodalite”... Very few pieces in our inventory show this characteristic. Some exhibit a very strong color change as shown in the piece below, while others exhibit varying degrees. These pieces are the rarest varieties of this already rare green sodalite and offer yet another quite unusual characteristic.

For more on this tenebrescent quality take a look at this <big> animation....

Under natural lighting (47k halogen) the piece appears to be an average green Sodalite. The only unique characteristic are the imbedded Aegirine crystals. It appears that specimens with Aegirine might have this UV tenebrescent quality.

When first exposed to UV (fulwave SW, LW, and MW) the specimen glows a dull orange. The fluorescence of this piece does not approach the brilliance of other specimens from the pocket.

But - after a minute or two the fluorescence changes! One might mistake this for Tugtupite. It glows a pleasing rusty red and remains this color as long as it kept under the UV lights (or in the dark).

When the UV light is removed and a picture is taken under natural light, the deep tenebrescense can be seen. This deep purple lasts for several minutes, depending on the brightness of the light. Under low-level lighting it can last for hours.

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This photo compares the “chameleon” Sodalite to a normal Sodalite from the same batch - photos taken together