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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) although it is very respectable under shortwave UV alone (second pic) - or even midwave UV or longwave UV alone.
Beautiful blue lazurite atop a matrix of calcite, diopside and phlogopite. Under shortwave the phlogopite is bright yellow, shifting to a bright butterscotch color midwave and an even deeper orange longwave (very few phlogopites have this multi-wave response). Midwave causes the calcite to pop very nicely. Diopside is a whitish-yellow under shortwave.
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.
