Re: Bones, Rocks and UV

To answer Carl's questions.

Yes, this does involve the Heavener Runestone.  Pieper and Kirby did
think it passed there "gotta be older than a century" test.  For those
of you not familiar with the runestone, check out these sites;
http://www2.privatei.com/~bartjean/mainpage.htm
http://www.frontiernet.net/~famfive/HEAVENER.HTM
http://members.clnk.com/starkies/heavenerhome.htm

I have not been able to find anything on the web about why the bone
test is supposed to work.  I will have to start contacting the keepers
of various forensic sites to see what is known.  I certainly hope the
forensics community has been curious enough to explore the basis for
this test, rather than just using it because it works.

The effect does decay over the time.  That was clear from comments by
Pieper about a couple of pieces of graffitti on the Heavener
Runestone.  He said that one bit of graffitti was older than another
one since the first fluoresced less.

One person has suggested that this phenonanon may have something to do
with the piezo-electric properties of the minerals.  But that was a
shot in the dark.
Maybe there is some sort of damage to the crystal structure.  Over
time the damaged surface weathers away or the crystal structure
somehow "heals" itself.

Even if the forensic community simply use this technique just because
it works, without understanding its theoretical basis, their approach
seems awfully crude.
The amount of fluorescence seen would seem to be a function of not
only the state of the bone, but the intenstity of the light used and
the abillity of the human eye to detect the fluoresencse.  The hundred
year limit seems to be an accident of the collision of the decay of
the effect over time, the amount of light off-the-shelf UV lamps give
off and the sensitivity of the human eye.

I can envision a system that would be much more sophisticated.  What
if a controllable source (like a UV laser) was used.   Instead of a
human eye as a detector, how about a spectrometer that would measure
both the intensity and wavelenghs of the fluoresence.  The system
would measure the response based upon varying the wavelength and
intensity of the UV source.  There might be a pattern of how the bone
would responds to different wavelenghts and intensities depending how
long ago the damage to the bone was done.  This could exend the time
range of the test a great deal.

I will continue to pursue this matter and post anything I come up
with.

Bart Torbert
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

Carl 1 Lucky Texan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
> Bart Torbert wrote:
> > Hello,
> > 
> > I need help in dealing with an attempt to apply a dating technique
> > standard in forensics to rock art.  Yes, this is going to be a bit
> > bizzare, but this is something quite serious.
> > 
> > Of late I have been working with two European university professors. 
> > One is Peter Pieper (don't laugh, that is his real name) of Dusseldorf
> > Univeristy, Germany and Ian Kirby of Laussanne Univeristy,
> > Switzerland.  Pieper teaches archaological and criminal forensics. 
> > Kirby teaches various topics dealing with the development of the
> > English language.  Both are also quite expert at Old Norse and love
> > runestones.
> > 
> > Within the forensics community there is a test that is applied to
> > bones to determine if they are old or young.  The test is conducted by
> > shining a UV light on the bones.  If the bones are less than a hundred
> > years old, any breaks that occured in them (like when the person was
> > killed) will fluoresce.  Sort of weird sounding, but quite real.  Here
> > is a link to a forensics page that mentions this.
> > http://www.dundee.ac.uk/forensicmedicine/llb/ident.htm
> 
> 
> Don't they know why?
> 
> 
> > 
> > My first question is why would this work?  Bone is essentially calcium
> > carbonate.  Some of the nicest fluorescent samples are of calcite. 
> > But is calcite inately fluorescent or only so if there are the right
> > sort of impurities in it?  If calcite is not inately fluoresent, then
> > bone, regular limestone, etc. should not be fluorescent.  So why would
> > broken bone flouresce and do so for so long a period of time?
> 
> 
> I wonder why it would LOSE its fluoresence.(assuming no isotopic 
> material is involved).
> 
> > 
> > Kirby and Pieper are now trying to extend this technique to rock art. 
> > They claim they have tested this approach on various types of rocks
> > and under conditions where the age of a carving (like on gravestones)
> > was known.
> 
> This seems like a good first step.
> 
>    They are quite satisfied that they have something that
> > works.  I am trying to figure out if there is a theoretical  basis for
> > it to work.
> 
> I have heard of 'shocked quartz' helping to determine meteoric impact 
> sites, but that is a physivcal change and other information is used to 
> determine time frames.
> 
> 
> > 
> > I was with them in Oklahoma a couple of weeks ago.  We examined a
> > piece of rock art that is documented to have been seen as early as the
> > 1830's.  On the stone was also some more modern looking "graffitti". 
> > Also there was a spot on the rock where a sample of the stone was
> > removed two months ago for geological analyis. The graffitti and the
> > sample locale fluoresced, the older artwork did not.  The stone
> > involved here was a sandstone that had gone through some low grade
> > metamorphism and was quite sturdy.
> 
> Is that the Heavener Runestone? I always wanted to visit it.
> 
> 
> > 
> > So does quartz act like calcite where it is not inately fluorescent,
> > but if it is damaged, will it glow for some period of time?  What
> > mechanism would allow damaged crystals to fluoresce?  Would this work
> > for all minerals or just a select few.
> 
> Should be easy enough to test. The question ,again, is what would cause 
> this phenomena to be temporary(100years is very quick in geologigic terms)
> 
> 
> > 
> > If this technique works it would be a big gain to the study of rock
> > art.  It would be nice if the technique weren't so crude in the date
> > cutoff.  You would only know if the art was older or younger than a
> > century.  But for many of the more controversial sites, the person
> > promoting the "find" is often accused of creating the rock art
> > themselves as some sort of attention getting scheme.  If Kirby and
> > Pieper's technique works, then there would at least be no question
> > whether something is an authentic ancient artifact or a modern hoax.
> > 
> > I can provide more details as needed about all of this.  I just wanted
> > to present the basic problem to mineralogists for their input.
> > 
> > Thanks ahead of time 
> 
> I think there is probably a lot of good techniques used by 
> archaeologists studying spearpoints and other stone weapons/tools. There 
> are of course a lot of folks trying desperately to pass off new points 
> as old (sorta the seedy underbelly of the flintknapping hobby) and I 
> think there are some effective copies. You should contact some of those 
> guys. They prbably know the most about how worked stone changes with time.
> 
> 
> Carl
> 1 Lucky Texan
> 
> 
> 
> 
> > 
> > Bart Torbert
> > [EMAIL PROTECTED]