Joined: Sun Oct 16, 2005 12:22 pm Posts: 21602 Location: San Francisco
I just received a letter from a lady who wore her Carribean blue topaz into the tan salon and it turned dark green!
She wrote to ask if there was anything she could do to reverse this effect.
Has anyone heard of this?
Joined: Mon Oct 17, 2005 10:56 am Posts: 6461 Location: The frozen north prairie :-/
My guess would be that the UV light of the tanning booth initiated a reaction with the irradiated/annealed color of the topaz and caused a further color change. Don't know if it can be remedied .
According to my notes Topaz is one of the gems that can have natural treatment (usually by the sun).
As UV light is part of the electromagnetic spectum I suspect that this plays a role in it. Although I never heared of it before.
Could you ask how long she exposed the stone to it?
Why not just try subjecting the stone to a fade test in the sun. It may just fade back to blue... Or become totally another thing altogether again
Isn't green topaz a novelty? Why not just leave it as such Perhaps in the mean time, I'll try out this greening of a small parcel of blue topaz in SW and LW UV.
Joined: Sun Oct 16, 2005 12:22 pm Posts: 21602 Location: San Francisco
The stone was exposed to the rays in the tanning booth for 20 minutes. The color produced was so dark a green, it almost appeared black. She wrote me today, that the topaz appears a bit lighter today. Indeed this may be a relatively short term effect.
It's very interesting.
Joined: Sun Oct 23, 2005 8:10 pm Posts: 436 Location: Australia
Makes you wonder what it could do to your body?
It's interesting how some Gems can change over short periods, our Zircon straight from the ground is one such stone that can change with intense lighting.
I found this by accident - in winter I often dry our washed sapphire/corundum under a ordinary halogen spot light. I made the mistake of drying zircon in the same way. After about 1 hr under the light when removed the red zircon has a beautiful bright glow, this fades a bit on cooling to a richer red than before, several hrs later they are back to normal. I have left a small lot under by mistake for an extended period (we normally only just warm the product enough that it will dry, 1-2hrs) but this was left on all night. Once this had cooled and I had dug out all the dead moths and bugs I found that our nice Red Zircon was an ordinary brownish colour.
Joined: Fri Feb 24, 2006 1:20 am Posts: 2756 Location: Southern California, U.S.A.
Hi Andrew,
You've nearly chanced upon the secret of heat-treating red/orange (and other colors) of zircon. Don't give up yet! The process is non-toxic but it can be somewhat alarming as you'll learn if you follow the link.
This is one of the funniest gem stories I've ever heard and I know the scene of the 'crime' very well: I spent 2+ months holed up in a 46th St. hotel some years ago while on a Ford Foundation Fellowship.
Joined: Sun Oct 23, 2005 8:10 pm Posts: 436 Location: Australia
ROM wrote:
Hi Andrew,
You've nearly chanced upon the secret of heat-treating red/orange (and other colors) of zircon. Don't give up yet! The process is non-toxic but it can be somewhat alarming as you'll learn if you follow the link.
This is one of the funniest gem stories I've ever heard and I know the scene of the 'crime' very well: I spent 2+ months holed up in a 46th St. hotel some years ago while on a Ford Foundation Fellowship.
Enjoy!
R.O.M.
I remember reading that article when I had this disaster. Very funny story - I'm not sure I'll give it a go although at least we live out of town and are not likely to have the fire brigade call in to investigate.
As a curiosity I put a medium blue topaz in my UV box under long wave for 10 minutes (didn't want to risk burning out the bulb for this experiment). No changes were noted.
The end of April marks my annual visits to the tanning beds. I'll take some topaz as well as some other gems and see what half an hour will do if anything.
Geez, the sacrifices I make in the name of science. <that's me in the tanning bed
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