Phosphorescent Mine, New Jersy

On August 8th we went to a zinc mine in New Jersey. This mine has been abandoned since 1987 due to lack of business from oversea zinc shipments, and ever since it has been a museum/tour.  All of that was really interesting, but the best part was that the mine glowed.  It was pretty amazing that there were certain minerals in the rock such as Willemite, Franklinite, and Scheelite that made them glow under an ultraviolet light. These colors looked cool, but they also served a function in the mining. Franklinite and Willemite glow green whereas Scheelite glows red. Franklinite's formula is Zn Fe2 O4, Willemite's is Zn2 Sio4. As you can see both contain zinc (Zn), and that's exactly what they were mining for. Scheelite on the other hand is Ca Wo4, and contains no zinc. Therefore it wasn't useful to the company. 

There was also a museum right outside the mine with samples of the rock under a UV light and plaques explaining how they glowed. The funny thing is that I have been studying electrical flows and how a light bulb emits light.  The rocks glowed in the exact same way. The only difference was the trigger. In a LED the electrical current excites the electrons and bumps them up to a higher energy state. When the electrons go back to their original state they release energy in the form of a photon, or a quanta of light. In the rock it does the same thing except the ultraviolet radiation triggers the higher energy state.  I thought this was a pretty cool place despite the fact that outside the mine it was blistering hot.












Next Stop: Valley Forge