California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, USA

This server provides information about mineralogy and is primarily dedicated to providing information about color in minerals and access to data on Mineral Absorption Spectra in the visible and infrared regions of the spectrum and Raman spectra of minerals. Most data on the server were obtained in the Caltech mineral spectroscopy labs. Other types of spectroscopic data on minerals are also available.

Visible, near-infrared and infrared absorption spectra are available for a number of minerals. Examples include common rock-forming minerals, gem minerals, and other minerals of particular interest.

Spectroscopic Data   Mineral Spectroscopy References   Causes of Color in Minerals   Representative Data from our lab  

Spectroscopic Data: hundreds of files and graphs

Have a look at our List of Data Files  or  Data from Recent Publications

This is the ever growing list of the minerals available on this server. Both data coordinates and images of the spectra are available for selected minerals. Information about the origin of color is available for selected minerals. Data are available both as images and as ASCII text with X,Y format following two header lines. Raman, infrared, and reflectance data are available and Mössbauer data are solicited. More details follow.

Extensive references to Optical Spectroscopic data now available

Have a look at our updated List of 758 References on color in minerals

This is a list of references to papers on mineral optical spectroscopy. It is an updated version of the list of references which appeared in Chapter 7, Optical Spectroscopy in Reviews in Mineralogy volume 18 published by the Mineralogical Society of America . Citations are available sorted both by mineral name and by first authors of papers. 

Have a look at our updated List of  References Hydrous components (OH, H₂O) in minerals

Learn why minerals have the colors they do

Be sure to see the sections illustrating and explaining the origin of color in minerals. You can learn about metal ions in crystals, intervalence charge transfer, and radiation-induced colors.  Many examples are shown and explained.
 

Click here to see pictures of Mineral Spectroscopists who have co-authored 10 or more papers in mineral optical spectroscopy. (Do you have other pictures to contribute?)

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Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences

This page last upgrade: 30-Apr-2021 

George R. Rossman    grr @ gps.caltech.edu    Mineralogy at Caltech

Required fine print:

This material is based upon work supported, in part, by the National Science Foundation under Grants No. 1322082, 0947956, 0550216, 0337816, 0125767, 9804871, 9405438, 9725897, 9218980, 9104059, 8916064, 8915909, 8816006, 8618200, 8313098, 8212549, 7923606, 7904801, 7919987, 7723147, and 7602014.

Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF).