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The Chemical Causes of Color

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Book cover The Chemical History of Color

Part of the book series: SpringerBriefs in Molecular Science ((BRIESFHISTCHEM))

Abstract

Thousands of tourists from all over the world flock to two island sites at opposite ends of the earth from one another for no other reason than to gaze in awe and wonder at the color phenomenon each one is famous for. Hawaii’s Green Sand Beach on the southernmost point of the Big Island boasts an entire beach covered with tiny olivine crystals that sparkle like emeralds in the tropical sun. Olivine is a common constituent of lava flows, but only in this one place has it been found of gem quality—the crystals in this case seem to have floated on a former lava lake. Around the globe in the North Atlantic, a unique body of water known as the Blue Lagoon on Iceland’s Reykjanes peninsula plays host to about 400,000 visitors a year who come to take a dip in this unique body of water—also an indirect product of an ancient lava flow flooded by the transforming effluent from a nearby geothermal power plant. What is it about some materials that give rise to these and so many other wonderful colors? Why are other substances colorless, and can we modify them to produce color? The answers to these questions are not simple, and they involve awareness of several important insights regarding the nature of matter, particularly atoms and molecules.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemistry, The College of New Rochelle, Castle Place 29, New Rochelle, NY, 10805, USA

    Mary Virginia Orna

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  1. Mary Virginia Orna
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Correspondence to Mary Virginia Orna .

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Orna, M.V. (2013). The Chemical Causes of Color. In: The Chemical History of Color. SpringerBriefs in Molecular Science(). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-32642-4_3

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