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We've made contact with a miner in the Afghan areas and have a supply of mine fresh material. The fluorescent activators have not been studied very much from this area. It's very unclear what is going on with most of the material from this locality, but as we get more material and discover new fluorescent minerals we will have them analyzed for proper IDs. But they sure do make for some confusing but amazingly beautiful fluorescent specimens. This piece (as most from Afghanistan) is best displayed using multiple wavelengths, and shows best under a combination of longwave, midwave and shortwave (fullwave - first picture), although it is very respectable under SW alone (second pic) - or even MW or LW alone.
There are many scapolite (var. marialite) crystals that are fluorescent a bright yellow LW and dimmer yellow SW.
The matrix appears to have a bright white fluorescing mineral that is suggested to perhaps be diopside. Under SW the calcite fluoresces a dark orange, and the diopside crystals fluoresce a bluish white. Under MW (only) there are areas of a strong blue fluorescence from an unknown mineral - this is one of the few examples of MW only fluorescence we have observed (several closeups of this area are shown at the bottom). Phlogopite is bright yellow under SW, shifting to a bright butterscotch color MW and even deeper LW (very few phlogopites have this multi-wave response). Midwave causes the calcite to pop very nicely. Longwave brings out the yellow color of the afghanite crystals. MW and LW bring out the bright yellow of the marialite very nicely. If we were to display it under only one light, we would probably pick SW, preferably with a MW “kicker”.
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.
