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 Post subject: Anyone with personal experience of irradiating stones?
PostPosted: Wed Nov 29, 2017 11:34 am 
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I have a question that only someone with personal experience of irradiating stones may answer:

If irradiating perfectly colorless quartz, how much energy and how long does it take for a color change to occur? (meaning to impart the quartz with a very slightly grayish or very slightly brownish hue)

I'm asking because I was wondering if the presence of perfectly colorless quartz on a mineral specimen can be considered a proof that the specimen wasn't irradiation treated at all?

Indeed I've seen some intense blue fluorite associated to perfectly colorless quartz, which I first assumed as a proof of the fluorite not being irradiated, but then my reasoning might actually be wrong if fluorite turns much faster or at lower energies than quartz when irradiated (in which case a short or weak energy irradiation may have improved the fluorite color without inducing any color change in the quartz)

Any feedback?


Last edited by cascaillou on Thu Nov 30, 2017 12:35 pm, edited 3 times in total.

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 Post subject: Re: Anyone with personal experience of irradiating stones?
PostPosted: Thu Nov 30, 2017 1:04 am 
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I have only ever had tourmaline and spodumene irradiated, but I wasn't there to do it....only to have it done on stones that I had purchased prior.

If nothing pops up for you here, then this question may get some answers over on Fabre Minerals Forum. Some smart guys used to frequent that place and just about any technical question I had, regarding mineral specimens, was answered on that board, to some degree.
http://www.mineral-forum.com/message-bo ... sc&start=0

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 Post subject: Re: Anyone with personal experience of irradiating stones?
PostPosted: Thu Nov 30, 2017 5:53 am 
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thanks for advice Jason. Unfortunately, I guess that it will be hard to find someone with the very specific experience of irradiation treatments to answer such a technical question.


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 Post subject: Re: Anyone with personal experience of irradiating stones?
PostPosted: Thu Nov 30, 2017 4:34 pm 
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I have done mild irradiation before, but never on quartz (glued a tiny kunzite to a glass slide and left it in the x-ray diffractometer when it was powered up but not in use--after a couple days the very edge turned green). I think the answer would depend on the composition though, since impurities have a pretty big effect on quartz's response to irradiation.

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 Post subject: Re: Anyone with personal experience of irradiating stones?
PostPosted: Thu Nov 30, 2017 5:45 pm 
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Yeah - I have only done topaz (33 years ago I convinced someone to put it down in the core of a test reactor - it turned coffee brown.)


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