Blue HaliteImagine sprinkling a little bit of this on your evening meal. This is the mineral halite

Blue HaliteImagine sprinkling a little bit of this on your evening meal. This is the mineral halite – literally NaCl or common table salt. The Na and Cl atoms in table salt are arranged in an alternating pattern that builds up one of the classic simple cubic structures found in minerals.Halite’s simple structure can have a surprising amount of weird complexity to it, and it is this complexity that halite can generate a color. For a mineral to have a color, there must be something in the mineral capable of absorbing light in the visible range. In this case, the color is caused by an electron in the structure that has broken free of the chemical bond where it used to be trapped.If halite is buried in the ground, it is exposed to natural radiation from decay of elements such as potassium, uranium, and thorium that are common in the crust. That radiation has enough energy to break bonds between Sodium and Chlorine, effectively turning the sodium into a neutrally charged metal atom in the process. This radiation damage leaves a free electron sitting in the crystal structure that is not strongly bonded to any atom; loose electrons like that are called color centers as they are capable of strongly absorbing visible light.This chunk of salt is ~12 centimeters long on each side, and weighs about a kilogram.-JBBImage credit: https://flic.kr/p/2j8S1NjReference:https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022231317303216 -- source link

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