Virtually everyone who saw my collection was amazed. It soon became apparent that almost no-one in Australia had even heard about the beautiful natural phenomenon of fluorescence, let alone had seen a good display. I decided to transfer my collection to a walk-in trailer, so I could take it around and raise awareness.
I had to import materials to set it up, including special UV-blocking safety acrylic sheeting, UV bulbs, suitable ballasts, and very expensive filter glass. The filter glass is needed to block visible light and allow UV light to pass through, exactly opposite to what most UV filters do. The reason visible light has to be blocked is that UV tubes emit a bluish light as well as UV light, and this bluish light has to be blocked so it doesn’t light up the rocks which would prevent the fluorescence from being seen. Altogether the trailer has about 3500 watts of short, medium and long wavelength UV lamps. It is perfectly safe because UV light cannot escape from the display cases due to the museum grade UV-blocking acrylic sheeting that forms the display case windows.
I can bring the Mobile Museum to meetings, shows, field days etc and give talks about fluorescence and Australian collecting, provided my expenses are met.
White light
UV light (SW, MW, LW)
Minerals on show include:
AUSTRALIA: aragonite, barite, calcite, collinsite, dolomite, fluorapatite, fluorite, gypsum, halite, hillite, hyalite opal, hydrozincite, manganocalcite, plumbian orthoclase, quartz, sheelite, smithsonite, willemite, wollastonite
AFGHANISTAN:
CANADA: agrellite, aragonite, calcite, chrondrodite, diopside, meionite (wernerite), sodalite
CHILE: manganocalcite
CHINA: eucryptite, sheelite
GREENLAND: analcime, chkalovite, hackmanite, natrolite, polylithionite, sodalite, tugtupite, uranyl
INDIA: corundum (ruby),
INDONESIA: ammonites
ITALY: aragonite, quartz,
MEXICO: calcite, chalcedony,
MOROCCO: calcite, fluorite
PAKISTAN: apatite, powellite
RUSSIA:
SWEDEN: calcite, dolomite, svebite
UK: barytocalcite, calcite, fluorite, hydrozincite, witherite, willemite
USA: andersonite, apatite, aragonite, calcite, diopside, esperite, fluorite, hardystonite,