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This colorful and bright specimen comes from remote Taseq Slope in the Ilimaussaq Complex of Greenland, where you will find the highly sought-after “Fantasy Rock.” Found only in this specific area, these rocks are known for their intense array of colors and glow under UV light.
This piece features rich, heavy blue analcime coverage with tugtupite that fluoresces a deep cherry red under shortwave UV and a salmon-orange under longwave. The delicate veining on this material clearly illustrates tugtupite replacing chkalovite and offers up fascinating “eye” patterns. Chkalovite shows up in green under midwave and as the rarer, pearly white variety, forming eye-like patterns surrounded by tugtupite. You’ll also find streaks of black arfvedsonite running throughout the matrix.
Under midwave UV, the tugtupite displays two different colors - the typical lilac purple and also a light salmon-orange. The tugtupite also glows brightly under longwave UV.
Fantasy Rock typically contains a mix of tugtupite, chkalovite, and analcime. It's a great example of the kind of mineral combination that makes this location so unique and collectible.
365nm UV light is often called "blacklight". Before the advent of longwave UV LEDs, blacklight fluorescent tubes, (the kinds used in hippie days to light up psychedelic posters) were the standard longwave UV light for our hobby. They were not very powerful but they did light a large area.
Enter 365nm UV LEDs
First, an animation showing the difference between the UV flashlight we recommend (365nm filtered UV flashlight) versus unfiltered 395nm UV flashlights we see many folks carrying around at shows. So. much. visible purple light. We selected a bunch of rocks as a demonstration. Took pictures of them under his flashlight without the filter and then with the filter.
A major component of rock collecting (for us) is simply getting out in nature. A buddy dragged us out to a very remote area here in middle Tennessee to hunt for fluorescent green agate. Since we consider ourselves pure "Glow Hounds" we weren't anticipating any glow rocks, just the beauty of the area, but we brought our UV lights anyway.
