FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[Garret]

Hello. I have a sizeable collection displayed on several shelves, and I have zircon and titanite specimens displayed near other crystalline mineral specimens. I am not very knowledgeable about radiation but have read a bit about metamiction.

Is metamiction simply an internal process in minerals that contain radioactive elements, or can displaying them 2-3 or more inches from other crystalline mineral specimens on the same shelf cause damage over time to the crystalline structures of the other nearby specimens by bombarding them with radiation? Likewise, does keeping multiple specimens of zircon and/or titanite close by each other amplify their internal metamiction processes?

[alfredo]

Humans can alter the structure of minerals using extremely high doses of radiation for a few minutes. Nature does the same thing with very weak doses of radiation over many millions of years. So yes, your radioactive specimens will affect their neighbors.... if you have the patience to wait a few million years.

[Carles Millan]

[James Catmur]

Electro-magnetic radiation can be far quicker. Just leave minerals in sunlight

[Amir Akhavan]

As the others have said, yes, alteration takes place, but this will take forever.

But there is also another aspect:
Minerals get metamict not only because of self-inflicted radiation damage.
The more important point is that the radioactive decay turns one element into another, so the radioactivity changes the composition of the mineral, and suddenly there are atoms in the structure where they "don't belong", and that ultimately leads to the destruction of the structure / amorphization.

This cannot happen in the same way in the minerals next to the zircon, etc. because they "only" get bombarded with alpha particles (which don't travel that far, anyway) and gamma/beta radiation, but do not have radioactive elements in them that decay by themselves.