Thursday 6 January 2022

King Willems’ Willemite

Willemite is a well-known fluorescent mineral, and its fame is attributed to the Franklin District of New Jersey where it occurs in abundance in many shapes and colors. 

Willemite, Franklin District New Jersey

Willemite is named after King William I of the Netherlands (1772 - 1843), who was known locally as King Willem. The type locality for Willemite (the original locality where a mineral is first found or identified) is in present-day Belgium, which was part of the greater Kingdom of the Netherlands when this mineral was named in 1830. 

Under the stereo microscope, a mineral sample from New Jersey was exposed to short wave ultraviolet light with a wavelength of 254 nm. The fluorescence image was taken with the Moticam Pro 285 B, which is specially designed for the imaging of low light subjects like in fluorescence microscopy.


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