[Rockhounds] Arkansas diamond hoax

[Ted Kowalski]

Well now, I'm confused. 

Are you well respected geologists and mineralologists telling me that there
are rocks that glow in the dark, independently?

If a rock is fluorescing, it is in response to light. If it is
phosphorescing, it is response to energy input, often light. In the dark is
in the dark, well maybe with some star light and moonlight. Flooding a site
with UV light is still lighting the area.

Now, I'm not defending whatever the guy was ranting about. I did not see the
Montana sapphire episode which since that is the last mentioned, I assume
that is the episode where the comment he was ranting about came from. 

I just don't have the same reaction to the words "glow in the dark". 

Ted Kowalski
Fredericksburg, VA USA



-----Original Message-----
From: rockhounds-bounces at lists.drizzle.com
[mailto:rockhounds-bounces at lists.drizzle.com] On Behalf Of DonH
Sent: Monday, March 17, 2008 1:57 PM
To: Rockhounds at drizzle.com: A mailing list for rock and gem collectors
Subject: Re: [Rockhounds] Arkansas diamond hoax

pmodreski at aol.com wrote:

> You must have read or browsed that site much more intensively than I did,
Don, because I can't find anything on there about rocks glowing or not
glowing in the dark; I just re-browsed throught his last year's postings, I
don't see anything about that....


Oh... I was wondering how thorough the site is, so after reading your 
link, I searched for other terms commonly associated with fraud, such as 
turquoise, andesine, labradorite, and sunstone.  The hit for "sunstone" 
brought up a posting about the Travel Channel series on Cash & Treasure, 
though the sunstone mines were mentioned in a positive manner.  However, 
the author digressed into some subjective commentary about all the 
salted sites featured on the show and the hostess's constant questions 
about "how much is that worth?", and then he made the comment I quoted, 
apparently to demonstrate some great naievete on her part.  Here is a 
link to the whole article:  http://www.fakeminerals.com/archives/22

It seems to me he is implying that fluorescent minerals are fake; by the 
context, I don't know what else he could possibly be saying, except that 
rocks don't *technically* "glow in the dark" (versus being excited by UV 
light, or unless they are phosphorescing), but again, from what he 
wrote, I doubt it.

I'm wondering if I'm misreading the commentary or if anyone else has the 
same impression.

Don



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