The age of using refractometers, Chelsea filters, UV lights, specific gravity, color, hardness, streak and other simple methods for mineral identification is unreliable, error-prone, 1800ís technology.† This text replaces all that obsolete methodology with a modern method of analysis using infrared spectroscopy.
This text covers commonly sold rocks and minerals in crystal and massive form that are used in jewelry, carving and shaped utensils, and as ornamental stone.† It is not restricted to semi-precious faceted gemstones.
Instead of throwing at the reader a set of infrared graphs of different minerals, the infrared discussion has several parts.† First, the behavior of infrared is described presenting the authorís findings through six years of research, yielding a new model of infrared behavior in studying materials such as minerals.† Second, the graphs are interpreted with this model to explain what the key peaks and troughs mean.† This superior understanding and new model of infrared allows for better identification.† Third, groups of minerals are differentiated with overlays of their graphs and explanation of their differences.† Fourth, groups of minerals are identified with key tables and discussion of how to identify particular species in a group.† The goal is not only to show you how to identify your specimen compared to an unknown, but also many fakes and confusing related minerals are shown.
You should come away with an understanding that infrared is not unreliable or noisy, but rather, inferior understanding of how infrared behaves has left others confused.† Infrared shows a complex system of crystallography particularly refractive index features that yields a whole new world of understanding not previously possible.† This book is innovative and provocative, using years of work and over 30,000 mineral graphs looking for patterns and trends.† Nothing occurs in infrared spectroscopy by accident, it is just a matter of how much time and how many specimens we need to discern exactly what is going on.† Those producing research reports on, say four specimens, are three orders of magnitude short of the level of effort it takes to study mineralogical reflectance infrared.† This text does not repeat the research of others, it compiles the research of the author, using and building upon and greatly improving upon the work that came before.† Little that you see here is found in current literature.† Large sections of this work are in no scientific literature of our time.† Yet, the work has been reviewed by some leading infrared scientists of our time from around the world as the author compared notes, shared specimens and data.† Their help is greatly appreciated.
This is not a research book to cite all the literature that has come before.† It is a hands-on book to show you what the answers turned out to be, and to show a comprehensive model of infrared for you to identify minerals on-hand.