How to Use the Database?

Search by Name

You can search by name using the search field located between the page header image and the menu.

The displayed result includes names that start with the chosen letters, closely match the spelling, or even contain the sequence of letters in the name. So, a search for "autu" will return, of course, autunite, but also meta-autunite, pseudo-autunite, sodium autunite, etc.
The result is the same whether you used uppercase, lowercase, or a mix of both in your search.

Multi-Criteria Search

The multi-criteria search allows you to combine criteria on almost all fields.

If you fill in only one field, the search is performed only on the selected criterion, while the others can take any value. If you use two or more criteria, a logical AND is applied between the criteria.

For example: if you specify family: carbonate containing the element Na and having uranium as an intrinsic activator, you will get 6 results: andersonite, cejkaite, grimselite, leoszilardite, natromarkeyite, and schroeckingerite.

If you enter no criteria and run a search, you will get the complete list of all luminescent minerals since there is no discriminating factor.

At the bottom of the page in "Display of Results," you can select the display of the chemical formula, activators, spectral data, and luminescence colors in addition to the names corresponding to your search.

For a generic search (fluorescent uranium minerals, tenebrescent minerals, or a list of minerals from Franklin, for example), the guides might be simpler to use.

Results Sheet

At the top of each mineral's sheet, there is a series of buttons allowing you to check if this mineral is for sale on eBay, view its mindat sheet, search on Google, Google Images, Google Videos, or find PDFs via Google.

The fluorescence colors are given as an indication. The perception of a color depends greatly on its observation context. To see this for yourself, go to the color chart page used or the complete color chart and change the background color of the page using the provided button; you will see that the effect on perception (brightness, contrast, etc.) is surprising.

WARNING

The spectra provided are not necessarily those of the sample shown in the photo.

The Guides

The guides allow you to print the entire list of described minerals with a reserved box to mark whether you already own this mineral. Specific lists (Franklin, Langban, Mont St Hilaire, luminescent uranium minerals, etc.) are also available.

Be careful, some guides are very bulky to print on paper; for example, the pocket guide is 250 pages long! (but if necessary, you can save it as a PDF using the print function to a PDF file).

If you are interested in fluorescence spectroscopy, the guide "Spectrographic Atlas of Luminescent Minerals" is specially intended for you.