I Might Could Use Some Advice On Hazardous Materials

[ThomWV]

I'll just be blunt about this.

First simple background facts. I live far in the country in an old house. We are doing a lot of work on it. Behind the house there is a flat spot where we sorted stone that later found its way onto our chimney but also got a but of rubble left from the enlargement of holes for windows. The house is made of block and the basement, which is where the rubble came from, was plastered with a very durable hard white finished plaster. I have no idea what the material is but it would have been applied sometime between between about 1930-1960. The rubble, and there's not a lot of it - no more than a bucket full - is below the east end of the deck

Now the event. Blunt; last night around two or so I wondered out to the end of the deck to take a piss. Call it country life. My trek across the deck went to the east. Normally I'd have wondered toward the west end of the deck but I had dropped an old cherry tree yesterday that blocked the east end so it was a new experience to piss from that end. Once again, just call it country life. So I'm standin' there in the dark and my eyes come into sort of non-asleep focus and I notice something astounding. Some of the rubble on the ground is glowing. Chunks of the old plaster (I think that is what it was, I'll confirm after dark tonight) that are no bigger than a dime or quarter were simply glowing a bright white. I have seen a good deal of phosphorescence (please excuse my attempt at spelling that) while night fishing off shore over the years. This was nothing like the eerie green you see out there, this was much brighter and actually white. I was astounded.

So that's all I know. Do you know something about this that I maybe should know?

[oneighty]

1. Interesting

Caused me to google 'lime plaster fluorescence'. seems magnesium might be your culprit.

180

[Midlodemocrat]

2. Could it be something as simple as mica?

Which might glow in the moonlight?

[ThomWV]

3. Don't Think So

I don't think so. This place is behind the house and shaded 24 hours a day by ovehead trees. I paid no attention what so ever to if there was or was not any moonlight last night but in any event mica in chunks of any size worth mentioning are pretty much nonexistant in this area. We used to play with sheets of it when I was a kid, flaking off as large a sheet as we could, so I'm familiar with what its like. There's nothing like that down there (its below the deck's top by about 4 feet) and the chunks of plaster do not seem to sparkle at all in the sunlight when I inspect a chunk of it.

Hmmmmmmm?

[sundog]

4. maybe it was the pee

it must have been moonglow
way up in the blue...

[supernova]

5. Could you take a sample

to the UWV for identifying? that's just :wow: :wow:

For a minute there, as I was reading I thought you were going to say that it might be asbestos. But glowing? Wierd.

[ThomWV]

7. Its WVU, not UWV

West Virginia University - I say as a proud graduate of a decade long past.

[Xipe Totec]

6. Foxfire - Nothing to worry about

Foxfire is a natural phenomenon sometimes visible at night in forests. It's caused by bioluminescent fungi in special conditions—usually on rotting bark. Foxfire is caused by a range of different species of fungi, though Armillaria mellea appears to be the most common source. This particular species emits a bluish-green glow, like glow in the dark toys. I've also come across reports of redish lights, however, which are most probably caused by other species. List of species which may cause bioluminescence: Armillaria mellea, Armillaria ostoyae, Collybia tuberosa (luminescent sclerotia*), Mycena chlorophos (Mycena chlorophanos), Mycena citricolor (Omphalia flavida), Mycena rorida (luminous spores), Omphalotus olearius (Clitocybe illudens, Omphalotus illudens, Jack-o'-lantern), Panellus stipticus (North American, not Eurasian, only), and Pleurotus nidfformis (Ghost Fungus). Source, e.g. sari.ac.uk; note also that Bioluminescence in Fungi says that the "bioluminescent ability occurs in 25 different phyla many of whichare totally unrelated". There are some illustrations of Mycena chlorophos glowing at the Springbrook Research Centre, and Luxgene (at bioart.co.uk) has several illustrations of species that cause foxfire:

http://inamidst.com/lights/foxfire


enjoy!

:hi: