Slashdot Mirror
Natural Fluorine Does Exist ... In Smelly Rocks
scibri writes "Chemists have proved that a smelly rock is the only known place on Earth where fluorine exists in its elemental form, F2 (Abstract).
The rock is antozonite, a calcium fluoride (fluorite) mineral that is dark violet or even black in colour, also known as fetid fluorite or stinkspar. Needless to say, this rock stinks. The pungent smell is given off when antozonite is crushed, and chemists and mineralogists have argued over the origin of the stench since the early nineteenth century.
It turns out French chemist Henri Moissan, who first isolated fluorine in 1886, was right. The rock contains pockets of fluorine that are released on crushing."
... consipracy that can be beat by buying a water filter....
Name a *cheap* household water filter that will remove fluorine. I've never found one. Sure, your Brita or Pur will remove most of the chlorine, but that's not the halogen we're talking about.
People in rural areas with wells which are contaminated with high levels of (usually natural) fluorine have no easy way to clean up the water, which can cause serious health problems as well as blackening the teeth.