Steemit Mineral of the Day #4 - Rocks That Glow from New Jersey, USA - Clinohedrite, Hardystonite & Willemite

The 4th installment in my series of rock and mineral specimens is a tie-dyed and very brightly fluorescent rock from right here in New Jersey! Without further ado, I present you with this fine Fluorescent Clinohedrite (Bright Orange SW UV), Hardystonite (Dark Blue SW UV) & Willemite (Bright Green SW UV), with Non-Fluorescent Black Franklinite (Type Locality) & Glassy Brown Andradite Garnet, from the Parker Shaft, Franklin Mine, Franklin, Sussex County, New Jersey, USA! It measures approximately 7.2 cm x 5.3 cm.

Here is the first side of the specimen shown under Shortwave Ultraviolet Light (SW UV), and then under standard indoor halogen lighting with flash.

And here is the other side under both sets of lighting conditions as well.

Fluorescent minerals from this area are usually quite ugly in daylight, but this one is am exception. The Willemite is a bright green & the Clinohedrite is pink, with the brown Andradite & metallic black Franklinite crystals contrasting nicely to make for a pleasing colorplay under normal light.

Minerals such as this were originally mined due to their high concentrations of metals. Franklinite is a very rich Iron, Zinc & Manganese ore & Willemite is a Zinc ore. These minerals made this deposit quite productive, and there was heavy mining activity in the area from the early 1800's through the latter part of the 20th century!

The Franklin & Ogdensburg mining district in Sussex County, NJ is known as the Fluorescent Mineral Capitol of the World, due to the extremely high quantity & quality of Fluorescent minerals that are found there. There have been well over 300 unique mineral species found there to date, with many of them having Fluorescent and/or Phosphorescent properties! Of the minerals found there, 62 were never found anywhere else and were previously uknown to science. Type Locality is the term used to describe the ocurrence where a mineral was first found and identified as a new species.

Even today, you can still visit the area and collect your very own Fluorescent minerals, well at least when it's not the middle of winter anyway! There are 2 excellent museums in the area, both of which allow collecting from the old mine dumps and the occassional mine run material that is added in periodically. The first is the Franklin Mineral Museum in Franklin, NJ, which has a world-class museum with amazing fluorescent & daylight specimens. The other is the Sterling Hill Mine & Museum in Ogdensburg, which has a museum & also a guided mine tour where you walk through the mine with UV lights in the dark & everything around you glows like crazy! It's for sure worth a visit if you ever have the opportunity!

If you have any questions or would like to know more, please feel free to post in the comments below and I will do my best to help!

If you like our rock and mineral pictures, please upvote, comment and share our posts! Be sure to follow us for more of our Steemit Mineral of the Day Series to see a beautiful new hand-picked mineral specimen each and every time!

Here are our previous entries in the series :

Steemit Mineral of the Day #1 - Grape Chalcedony from Sulawesi, Indonesia
https://steemit.com/rocks/@therockman/steemit-mineral-of-the-day-1-grape-chalcedony

Steemit Mineral of the Day #2 - Native Copper Crystals & Chrysocolla from New Jersey!
https://steemit.com/rocks/@therockman/steemit-mineral-of-the-day-2-native-copper-crystals-and-chrysocolla-from-new-jersey

Steemit Mineral of the Day #3 - Marcasite Spheres & Micro Sphalerite on Schalenblende
https://steemit.com/rocks/@therockman/steemit-mineral-of-the-day-3-marcasite-spheres-and-micro-sphalerite-on-schalenblende