Mineral: Sodalite
Locality: Badakhshan Province, Afghanistan
Dimensions: 2.5 x 2 x 3.5 cm / main crystal: 3.2 cm.

Description: Mass: 18 g MIM number: 1326 Floating single crystal, completely transparent and light purple, with a great number of well expressed facets showing the rare sodalite twin (a reentrant angle makes it possible to verify it, as well as the elongated pseudo-hexagonal effect resulting from the rotation of one dodecahedron with respect to the other). The crystal is at the same time fluorescent (pink under long UV rays), tenebrescent (darkening in response to radiation of one wavelength and then reversibly bleaching on exposure to a different wavelength) and phosphorescent (once the source of UV light is turned off, it emits a pale yellow light in the dark for a period of ten minutes). Photographer: Joe Budd; Publication: "Mineralogical Record: Jul-Aug 2008" Ex collection: Herbert Obodda (USA)

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