“Greenstone” Made In The Laboratory

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32018, 19 June 1969, Page 18

“Greenstone” Made In The Laboratory

(New Zealand Preet association) WELLINGTON, June 18. Wellington scientists are producing greenstone beads, fibres, and gemstones in the laboratory. To the layman they are difficult to tell from the genuine article.

They are the work of staff and advanced students of the Victoria University chemistry department as part of a research programme geared to practical ends; the aim is to create under laboratory conditions the geological forces and processes which operate naturally for immense periods of time. The greenstone is produced by firing clays in a temperature of about 2000 deg Centigrade. This is drawn out rapidly, resulting in fibres; or beads may be formed by rapid cooling. Heating in the presence of oxides provides a touch of colour. Ways of exploiting the greenstone products are so far unexplored but it is possible they might be used in reinforcing plastics or prove to have optical properties. Other possible applications might be found in the tourist industry or for sculpting, using fibres for hair and eye-; lashes, and beads for eyes. Pressure “Bomb" The gems are produced by Dr A Taylor in a pressure “bomb” which creates extreme pressures and temperatures up to 4000 deg Centigrade in a confined space. They grow as quartz crystals at a rate of about one millimetre a day. Or the “gems” may be artificially

coloured with beryl producing blue crystals and vanadium green. “Growing the crystals gives us a lead to the formation of more complete silicates,” Dr Taylor said. Local Industry “I am keen that the work is eventually exploited as far as possible in local industry,” said the head of the chemls-

try department, Professor J. F. Duncan. “Each week we have an important industrialist here to explain his work to the students and suggest to them avenues for exploration within the country. “Research chemists and manufacturers are leaving New Zealand because they do not realise they are needed here.”