Fans of the fantasy literary genre are plausibly used to the idea of special Harlan Fiske Stone or crystallization that have formed on ancient dead bodies and boast some sort of mystical holding , but did you know there are realnecro crystalsin the world ?
What is vivianite?
Vivianite , a rarefied phosphate mineral ( Fe3(PO4)2−(H2O)8 ) has been establish growing on constitutive materials such as fogey shells , animate being waste deposits , and even on molder bodies .
Thecrystal , which is well known for its beautiful and vividly colored social structure , develops in Fe - rich aqueous deposit containing bones , decayed wood , and other constitutive remains , especially in clay and sandstone . They can also be found in hydrothermal replacing deposits and in phosphate - full-bodied granite pegmatites – igneous stone with a coarse grain and interlocking crystallization .
The quartz is extremely fragile and , when freshly formed , is often pale white or transparent , but its colour in reality changes when it is exposed to visible radiation . This is because of oxidisation , which preserve to darken the crystal through shades of puritanical , to darker fleeceable and purple , and eventually a thick purple inkiness .
Vivianite crystals. Image Credit: Rob Lavinsky viaWikimedia Commons(CC BY-SA 3.0)
Why does vivianite form on dead bodies?
Well , the Francis Scott Key here is the interaction between iron , water , and phosphate . Our bodies contain plenty of inorganic phosphate , peculiarly in our teeth and pearl , which is free into the circumvent surround when we bulge to disintegrate . Inrare conditions , where the beleaguer area contains water and iron , the phosphate can respond and forge mineral vivianite .
In most case , vivianite has been observed on bodies that have been buried for several hundred where it has formed on the ivory and tooth . There are also far older examples where it has been found on the tusks of mammoth and the bones of other animate being that are several thousands of years old , but there are a few case where it has been identified on more recent human body .
In the 1960s , archaeologistsdiscovered several bodies in Lake Walchen , Germany , which were partially skeletonized and also covered in fatty wax , or Adipocere – a intersection of decomposition that turns body fat into a scoop - like substance . One of the body had an Fe home plate fastened to it that had mold vivianite between it and the fat wax . An analysis of the body ’s apparel indicated that it had probably been in the water system for somewhere between 30 and 50 yr and that the crystals could have only formed in such a short time because the iron home base had released sufficient iron II ions as it corrode , grant the vivianite to grow on the phosphate - robust part of the organic structure .
In 1998 , another squad of investigator discovered vivianite on the remains of aUS Servicemanwho had been list as missing in action from Vietnam since 1963 after his B-26B aircraft last missing . By analyzing the mineral , the researchers were able to conclude that the torso had in all likelihood been entomb in wet soil alongside parts of the plane , which allowed the vivianite to grow .
Vivianite has also been found on the body – in spite of appearance and outside the skin and in the lung tissue – of “ Ötzi ” , the 5,300 - year - honest-to-goodness hatchet man detect by a German tourist in the Tirolean Ötztal Alps in 1991 . It is believe that the crystal form on the body at the points where it had contact with branding iron - containing rock .
Similarly , in 1996 another vivianite - encrusted adipocere organic structure was discovered in a bay of Lake Brienz in Switzerland and is thought to belong to aman who drowned there sometimein the 1700s .
Vivianite was nominate in 1817 after John Henry Vivian , an English mineralogist who first come across the mineral in Cornwall , England .
