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Techniques for CollectorsSmelly halite

8th Feb 2010 15:29 UTCTimothy Jackson

I recently aquired a specimen of pinkish purple halite from searles lake, California. I want to display it in my cabinet but it smells quite strongly of rotting shellfish so it is in a sealable clear plastic bag hidden away in a box. Is this smell a common attribute of Searles lake Halite?

8th Feb 2010 15:40 UTCTimothy Jackson

Sorry I forgot to add if anyone has any solutions to the smell?

Many thanks(tu)

8th Feb 2010 17:14 UTCMark Gottlieb

I believe the pink color is due to some type of salt loving bacteria. A had one a few years back and it sure did stink; it was eventually tossed in the trash.

20th Feb 2010 07:20 UTCRock Currier Expert

Conventional wisdom is that the smell is from decomposing algae that grown in the saturated brine pools where the salt forms. I know of no way to remove the smell except to dry the specimen throughly and even then if you live where humidity is high it will come right back. Often the color of these specimens is caused more by food die number 1 rather than the dead algae which was originally the case of the pink halite collected on the lake. Even this natural pink color will fade over the years.

20th Feb 2010 14:23 UTCReiner Mielke Expert

I always thought there was something "fishy" about pink Halite from Searles Lake.

20th Feb 2010 16:17 UTCMike Royal

i would suggest a air tight plastic box then you can view with out odder

1st Mar 2010 03:40 UTCCasper Voogt

I kept mine in a plastic box with desiccant for a week, then put it in my display cabinet with desiccant - with low light conditions most of the time.

It was smelly when I got it, but that has dissipated ... or maybe I have gotten used to it! I certainly wouldn't throw it out ;)

10th May 2016 16:19 UTCAnnie Crosby

I see this is an old post, but I have also acquired a nice piece of pink halite that is oh-so-stinky! I'm wondering if I could both seal it and preserve it for display in resin, perhaps in a pyramid shape or just a cube. Or would the reaction of the halite to the resin not be good?

10th May 2016 19:07 UTCAlan Pribula

Annie:

In general, you don't want to do anything to a specimen that can't be reversed. Whether or not the resin would react with the halite (which it might, but I doubt it, since most resin formulations don't contain water), if you encapsulated the sample that way, it would be (essentially) permanently locked in. That would contain the smell, but it would also preclude any future owner of the piece from handling the sample or examining it closely. Others might disagree, but I would consider the value of the sample to be significantly reduced (essentially to $0) if it were permanently encased like that. Also, unless you have the proper equipment and setup, it would be pretty close to impossible to embed the sample in resin without also trapping loads of air bubbles which would detract from its appearance.


My suggestion would be to do as Casper did. He says that it worked pretty well on his sample, and you wouldn't be doing anything permanent to the specimen--except reducing its smell, which is the object.

10th May 2016 19:35 UTCŁukasz Kruszewski Expert

I dunno about the pink ones, but blue halites have their colour due to inclusions of hydrogen sulphide, and this has a very strong unpleasant odor, although more like spoilt eggs.

10th May 2016 22:13 UTCRob Woodside 🌟 Manager

That's interesting Łukasz, There's a claim that the blue halites are colored by Native sodium. At the Caltech website there's a photo of confirmed metallic sodium as a light blue cloud in gamma irradiated halite. It is a very light blue and not the strong blue of most blue halites. There are strong purple and strong blue halites that I would have thought were due to colour centres? What kind of blue are your H2S halites?
 
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