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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."

38 of 80 comments (clear)

  1. Talk about irony, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Just today I went to Autozone and bought a car air freshener!

  2. Radiation produced fluorine by AlienIntelligence · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Clues from previous experiments suggested how fluorine might be formed in the rocks. The experiments exposed artificial calcium fluoride to - and -radiation, and high-energy electron beams. The samples often turned violet, because the radiation was splitting calcium fluoride apart to form clusters of calcium ions. Subsequent tests showed that bubbles of fluorine gas were also forming in the lenses.

    The same process could explain the stench of antozonite, says Kraus. The mineral contains tiny amounts of radioactive uranium-238, which decays into -emitting daughter nuclides. The rocks have been lying around for 100 million years, says Kraus, which is enough time for the radioactive decay to produce the same effect as seen in the artificial fluorite experiments.

    Interesting stuff to a rock nerd.

    -AI

    --
    For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion
    1. Re:Radiation produced fluorine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      This looked really weird until I realized my font doesn't include alpha or beta characters.
      Perhaps I have a pre-alpha release.

    2. Re:Radiation produced fluorine by dmbasso · · Score: 4, Funny

      The rocks have been lying around for 100 million years

      Heresy! God created them smelly 6 thousand years ago!

      --
      `echo $[0x853204FA81]|tr 0-9 ionbsdeaml`@gmail.com
    3. Re:Radiation produced fluorine by kermidge · · Score: 1

      So by you all human activity is a zero-sum game?

    4. Re:Radiation produced fluorine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      If you read your article, you will find Eco-loonies had little to do with it, and it was simply corrupt leaders of African countries.

    5. Re:Radiation produced fluorine by shiftless · · Score: 1

      And yet you spent all this time and effort typing out your hateful post. Get back to farming, peon.

    6. Re:Radiation produced fluorine by Goaway · · Score: 1

      Nothing to do with your font. Slashdot is just completely broken and silently eats all non-ASCII characters.

    7. Re:Radiation produced fluorine by idji · · Score: 1

      wake up. It is electron shooters doing basic science, who may unlock the tools we need to desalinate ground so that those starving children have food to eat. It is not a far stretch to go from flourine research in rock to chorine in rock, which can inform desalination. Let these millions of scientists do basic science and 10s of millions of you can feed the starving with the tools they give you. pick up a shovel and start digging. Now get of the internet and start growing seeds.

    8. Re:Radiation produced fluorine by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      This looked really weird until I realized my font doesn't include alpha or beta characters. Perhaps I have a pre-alpha release.

      The Greek letters in GP's post have decayed before you got to read them.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
  3. communists! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Do you realize that fluoridation is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous Communist plot we have ever had to face?

    1. Re:communists! by Lumpy · · Score: 1

      "Do you realize that fluoridation is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous Communist plot we have ever had to face?"

      Shut up and drink more water comrade...

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    2. Re:communists! by Mal-2 · · Score: 1

      Do you realize that fluoridation is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous Communist plot we have ever had to face?

      Funny, I got a pamphlet from Pueblo, Colorado entitled, "Do you know what the queers are doing to our soil?" They're planting elemental fluorine to defoliate landing strips for gay Martians! You know what, AC, I like you. You're not like the other people, here in this trailer park.

      --
      How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
  4. Now you did it... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    You're gonna bring out all the anti-flouride nuts.

    People so worried about a massive decades long goverment flouride consipracy that can be beat by buying a water filter....

    1. Re:Now you did it... by black6host · · Score: 2

      People so worried about a massive decades long goverment flouride consipracy that can be beat by buying a water filter..

      Sorry, I don't understand. Are we talking about flourine or flouride? I'm 54 (and no chemist so I don't know the difference, please excuse me) and the water I grew up with was flouridated, the toothpaste I use also contains one of the above. To the poster below regarding black teeth. I still have all my teeth and they are not black. Daily brushing and flossing seem to have kept them in pretty good shape over the years.

      So..... instead of assuming that everyone knows the dangers, please educate me. That's an honest request actually. I'm no fan of the things the government has done that have been proven to be of harm to the general citizenship, and I believe many such a thing has probably happened. But please, more info. If I need a few more layers on the tinfoil hat I'd like to know :)

    2. Re:Now you did it... by kubernet3s · · Score: 1

      Ahem.... Good troll, sir, you almost had me.

    3. Re:Now you did it... by wierd_w · · Score: 5, Informative

      Not a chemist either, just a chemistry nerd, but:

      First. Its "Fluorine", not "flourine". No ground up wheat is involved. :D (sorry for the nitpick. Its an honest mistake.)

      Second, "fluorine" is the elementary pure form. Pure fluorine is a covelently bound pair of fluorine atoms, much like pure oxygen is.

      Fluoride is a salt made with fluorine that does not contain oxygen. Eg, "sodium fluoride": a sodium atom ionically attracted to a fluorine atom.

      When oxygen is involved, you get "fluorite", and "fluorate", depending on the number of oxygen atoms involved.

      Natural fluorites and fluorides occur in groundwater in far higher concentrations than are medicinally useful. Typically, the concentration of fluoride ion required to help stabilize the calcium phosphate complex found in teeth against acid breakdown is less than 1% in solution. (Toothpastes are usually sufficient to get the primary benefit of topical fluoride use, and usually contain .2% fluoride ion in the form of sodium fluoride by weight. Fluoridated water is higher, because the time the water is in contact with teeth while drinking is considerably shorter.) You can have way higher than this in naturally fluoride contaminated water supplies.

      High levels of fluoride in drinking water causes abnormal tooth and bone formation, in a condition known as fluorisis. It causes discolored, and fragile teeth, as well as brittle bones that are especially prone to osteoporosis and other bone disorders. As such, the danger of overfluoridation is indeed quite real. However, you would have to regularly eat your toothpaste to have this condition. It is argued that children, the primary reported benefactors to fluoridated water operations, are notoriously bad at proper use of brushing and toothpaste use, and are at significantly higher risk of ingesting the toothpaste instead of spitting it out. In conjunction with fluoridated water, this results in a higher risk of permanent tooth deformities in adult tooth formation from the excess fluoride.

      In areas with already dangerous levels of fluoride present in the drinking water from natural sources, the use of a filter to remove the excessive ion concentration is not only beneficial, but highly recommended, as it can indeed cause severe and debilitating tooth and bone problems.

      The more you know!

    4. Re:Now you did it... by retchdog · · Score: 1

      neither; we're talking about fluoride and fluorine. i dunno how you ionized milled wheat.

      back on topic: you can overdose on fluoride which causes all sorts of bad things. the therapeutic dose is close to the fluorosis dose, so the recommended levels of fluoride have been reduced over the past few decades. i wouldn't really be surprised if there were some serious problems with the original dosage in some areas, from whence all of these conspiracy theories...

      --
      "They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
    5. Re:Now you did it... by Lumpy · · Score: 1

      Oh christ, your teeth will not BLACKEN.. they will mottle and turn a little brown. and it's highly rare.

      No wonder you are modded Troll, you went so far overboard even the sharks in the water are looking at you with the "is he insane" look.

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    6. Re:Now you did it... by jeffb+(2.718) · · Score: 2

      When oxygen is involved, you get "fluorite", and "fluorate", depending on the number of oxygen atoms involved.

      One small nit, from another non-chemist chemistry nerd: this never happens. It does with other halogens (bromine, chlorine, iodine), because they can all be oxidized, and in fact combined with oxygen, to make stable oxyhalide anions. Fluorine don't play that; forced into company with oxygen, fluorine does the oxidizing, and oxygen gives up an electron or two. The resulting oxygen difluoride isn't an acid anhydride; mixed with water, it gradually decomposes into hydrofluoric acid and oxygen, instead of making "hypofluorous acid" or whatever.

      I'm stunned that you can find free fluorine, in quantities large enough to smell, occurring naturally on the Earth's surface. I'll have to find out more about this. Wonder if anybody's gotten poisoned from it...?

    7. Re:Now you did it... by evilviper · · Score: 1

      So..... instead of assuming that everyone knows the dangers, please educate me. That's an honest request actually.

      You can ignore the conspiracy idiots.

      The conspiracy theory centers around fluoride being an industrial waste product... so presumably somebody faked the bone/dental tests so that water companies would pay them to haul away their trash (fluoride).

      "Fluoride poisoning" is a real condition, but you need far more than you would get in tap water. In fact "Water Intoxication" is a real condition too, but nobody would claim we don't need to drink water (but then again: http://dhmo.org/coverup.html).

      --
      Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
    8. Re:Now you did it... by DigiShaman · · Score: 1

      Good to know. Thanks! However, how is the average family in a modern city to know if they're getting too little or too much fluoride? In America at least, all cities have their tap water metered for the correct ratio. Right?

      --
      Life is not for the lazy.
    9. Re:Now you did it... by wierd_w · · Score: 1

      Me too! I didnt think something as electronegative as fluorine could remain in elementally pure form outside of a constantly irradiated supernova gas cloud, or similarly exotic environment. it reacts with pretty much everything! (and when it does, it doesnt let go!)

    10. Re:Now you did it... by wierd_w · · Score: 2

      an exact ratio is a poor measure for what is an appropriate fluoride ion intake on a per-person basis.

      Different people absorb the ion at different rates upon ingestion, so while one person might develop fluorosis, another might not, despite having an identical diet, and an identical fluoride intake, even when measured in total milligram quantities.

      This is part of why fluoridation of drinking water is often a hotbutton issue, even among health experts and chemists. On one hand, there is a clear health benefit for the impoverished, who are statistically less educated, and often have poorer oral hygiene regimens. For such persons and their children, oral fluorine solution in the drinking water may well be the only source of fluorine that they come into contact with, and may make up the major public health contribution against dental caries for those demographics.

      It however, has a nastier side.

      Fluoride ion is delivered as a salt, dissolved in the water. This salt concentration can be... Concentrated.. by such mundane activities as preparing a meal that makes use of tapwater, such as cooking pasta. As such, the dietary intake of fluoride ion delivered through the municipal water supply may inadvertantly hyper-fluoridate the population, despite being delivered at a low concentration. This is entirely before toothpastes and mouthwashes even enter the picture.

      In other countries besides the US, the fluoride is added to milk products, or to salt, in an effort to combat this secondary exposure route that concentrates the ion prior to ingestion, but still have it readily applied to the lower income demographics of the society that would benefit most from the fluoridation.

      Sadly, fluorosis does not present itself with a major identifiable diagnostic factor until AFTER it is too late. It simply is incorporated asymptotically into tooth and bone tissues as they develop, and if the concentrations in those tissues are too high, it manifests the disorder.

      This incorporation into tooth structure prior to the eruption of primary teeth is known as the "Secondary" benefit of fluoride, and can only be obtained through ingestion, which is often hailed by fluoride promoters. Within certain tolerances, (which are dangerously close to the fluorosis inducing side of things) the incorporation of fluoride into the calcium phosphate complex that comprises tooth enamel makes it naturally harder and more resistant to abrasions and decay. A little fluoride is a good thing.

      However, too much fluoride is a bad thing, ranging from "Merely cosmetic", to "pathalogical".

      Many people have very mild to moderate tooth fluorosis and do not even know it. It causes white streaking and a pearlescent quality to tooth enamel in the mild to moderate case. Extreme fluorosis causes yellowed, mottled, deformed, and brittle teeth. In most cases, this mild fluorosis is benign, and is merely cosmetic. Your dentist wont even mention it.

      If you are worried about your fluoride intake, I really dont know what to tell you, other than to suggest using bottled water instead of municipal tap water to prepare meals, if your water is fluoridated, and to avoid eating your toothpaste, and drinking fluoride containing mouthwashes.

      *shrug*

    11. Re:Now you did it... by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      Are we talking about flourine or flouride? I'm 54 (and no chemist so I don't know the difference, please excuse me

      Don't let that stop you from having extreme and strongly held opinions.

      It certainly doesn't prevent anyone else.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    12. Re:Now you did it... by rs79 · · Score: 1

      "I don't want to say she was a turn off, but even flourine won't react with her"

      --
      Need Mercedes parts ?
    13. Re:Now you did it... by rs79 · · Score: 1

      Ectually, flourine molecules have a strategic role in their place in some psych meds. All it takes is one schizophrenic to find this out and overnight there's tens of thousands of anti-flouride crusaders on facebook.

      --
      Need Mercedes parts ?
    14. Re:Now you did it... by idji · · Score: 1

      elemental Fluorine (found as F2) is nasty, it is so reactive it can eat/etch/oxidate glass and most metals. Just think about how noxious chlorine is, and it is MUCH worse and more toxic
      It is most fascinating, that the most oxidative (more powerful than anything else at stealing 1 electron, except perhaps PtF6-) substance we know is found in nature in this special environment. Nature was almost always there before us, including natural nuclear reactors in Gabon. Just think about how special elemental oxygen is in the universe. It is generally believed it can only be found where life has produced it - so there will be a massive frenzy if they detect elemental oxygen in the atmosphere of an exoplanet. And now we have found something more oxidative than oxygen found in it's elemental state.

    15. Re:Now you did it... by pegasustonans · · Score: 2

      Not a chemist either, just a chemistry nerd, but:

      First. Its "Fluorine", not "flourine".

      It's "it's" not "its" for 'it is,' or is it?

      ...Sorry, I'd never correct something like that, but the urge to nitpick a nitpick is just too great. My apologies to all normal people. :)

      --
      And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. --Will
    16. Re:Now you did it... by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      Natural fluorites and fluorides occur in groundwater in far higher concentrations than are medicinally useful. Typically, the concentration of fluoride ion required to help stabilize the calcium phosphate complex found in teeth against acid breakdown is less than 1% in solution. (Toothpastes are usually sufficient to get the primary benefit of topical fluoride use, and usually contain .2% fluoride ion in the form of sodium fluoride by weight. Fluoridated water is higher, because the time the water is in contact with teeth while drinking is considerably shorter.) You can have way higher than this in naturally fluoride contaminated water supplies.

      You must have got your numbers seriously wrong. Of course the concentration is less than 1%, that would kill you rather quickly, you'd probably get a cardiac arrest. As far as I know, the concentration in treated water is somewhere around 1 ppm.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    17. Re:Now you did it... by TheDarkener · · Score: 1

      Fluorisis isn't the only danger to fluoride in the blood (and not used as a topical treatment) - The penial gland in the brain is the organ that fluoride collects the most in. It basically calcifies and prevents it from functioning. The penial gland is pivotal to the secretion of melatonin (and DMT when you sleep for those extra-real dream sequences) which affects sleeping patterns, the onset of puberty and seeing majesty (i.e. Trogdor). It's pretty important to our individual process of creativity and feeling good. Which I could see why so many conspiracies were formed in the way of 'poisioning the cities' water supplies'.

      --
      It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
  5. Fluoridated rocks? by circletimessquare · · Score: 2

    that's just the way a hardcore commie works

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qr2bSL5VQgM

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
    1. Re:Fluoridated rocks? by jason777 · · Score: 1
  6. Wait, they only recently proved this? by Lumpy · · Score: 1

    I remember my geology professor telling us this exact thing back in the 80's. Was College level geology professors teaching as fact something that was only a theory?

    Why could they not have ran the same tests? Gas Chromatagraphs existed back then, so setting it up to crush a sample and then test the gasses released would have been trivial.

    --
    Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    1. Re:Wait, they only recently proved this? by jeffb+(2.718) · · Score: 1

      I was all set to make a snarky comment about what free fluorine would do to your stationary phase (not to mention the tube containing it), but by golly, they'd long since figured out how to deal with that, too.

  7. Comedy Of Errors not Conspiracy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VX1qiQoASlw&feature=related

    Anything that bioaccumulates that is harmful in sufficient concentrations must be kept below very very low levels of intake, sufficient so that it cannot accumulate to harmful levels. Even after 40years! heck should we accept it if it took 80years?

    In southern india and many parts of africa the levels of flouride in the water naturally are so high that they suffer extreme health problems including skeletal fluorosis. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4519697926101725336

    So its ironic that another AC below me is complaining about people caring about a "fucking rock" when children in Africa are starving! the Irony! Do you realise that these children in Africa are drinking upto 10 to 40mg/L of fluoride in their water and have a significantly reduced IQ as a result. What do you think reducing the entire populations IQ by 15 points does, how about 30 points.
    These countries are only now implementing systems to remove water fluoride which could be one of the most significant actions available to increase their own long term self sustainability by increasing their IQ ! With a reduction of 15 IQ to the population the chinese studies found 1/3 as many children in the "Advanced class in school".

    the effects of fluoride on the micovilli sound suspiciously like Coeleacs disease which has suddenly exploded, and sure there may be genetic risk factors that make people react more to wheat but the hypersensitivity of the neutrophiles can be explained by Fluoride.

    Asthma rates is developed countries has exploded and it is recognised that urban pollution particularly traffic pollution is a risk factor. But what is it about the exhaust? Hydrofluoric Acid explains Asthma quite well. It causes damage to the lung tissue yes, but it also causes airway hyperresponsiveness. This is called Pot-Room-Asthma among metal foundry workers, where Fluorine gets its name, as its primary role was as a Metal Flux even before it was isolated by Henri Moissan. The latin word/prefix for Flow is Flou.

    This rock didnt just stink it killed! HF gas is deadly by the time you can smell it making it particularly dangerous. Do you really think you can tell you are being exposed to it chronically, over decades, when it only becomes detectable at immediately life threatening levels.

    By the way the immediately life threatening levels are around 25mg/m^3, so how many mg does it actually take to kill someone ? the accidents that have occurred in Alaska where people died after drinking over fluorinated water, vomited and then drank more, repeat, until death occured. The victims showed levels in their urine at around 20mg/L, we PUT 1mg/L in the water and tell people its good for them!

    Vitamin C has a major detox role in the body, and one of these is to protect from F. The experiments in India attempting to reverse Skeletal Fluorosis use 500mg + of Vit C and Vit D and E are also shown to remove it from the body, and E helps to remove it from the CNS where it concentrates.

    Its more a comedy of errors than a conspiracy, along the line of governments being complicit in allowing paracetamol to be advertised as being the "safe option" and suitable for kids. From our mistakes we are figuring out more about ourselves than we could have expected.

    Oh and before anyone mentions anything about the "conspiracy" as opposed to the "comedy of errors" that is water fluoridation in America consider that Japan _doesnot_ fluoridate its water. Neither dose most of europe, also calcium fluoride added to salt has 1/50 th the dissociation in water that NaF does, possibly meaning 50 times more bioavailability. Tests measuring the levels of rat urine shows that the Silicon Fluorine compounds that are in practise used may increase the urine level of F by 3 times over the same concentration of NaF in their drinking water, suggesting an increase in the level transported to the plasma by 3 times (actually more than that because its being deposited almost everywhere along

  8. containers for F2 storage. by jasontheking · · Score: 1

    according to http://www.theodoregray.com/periodictable/Elements/009/index.s7.html , its pretty difficult to make a container to store pure F2 gas, maybe this is a way to at least transport it, assuming you have enough of the rock, or can make more of it.

    Also, you smelt it? whats the safe distance you can get near this stuff (before/after you crush it) without doing nasty damage to yourself.

  9. didn't the NIH lower recommended fluoride levels? by nido · · Score: 1

    And what about the guy who says that fluoride cuts up the enzymes that re-enamalize teeth?

    Healthy teeth are made of calcium and phosphate, according to Gerard Judd's old site (gerardjudd.com iirc - check archive.org)... Cavities are caused by acids which dissolve tooth enamel - these are either in foods (soda, etc), or produced by bacteria. Instead of dumping a highly reactive molecule in the water, one that contributes to osteoporosis in old women, wouldn't it be better to give kids the proper supplements in their school lunches?

    Incidentally, I am totally disillusioned about oral hygiene products. Plain baking soda and salt works better for me than almost every brand of toothpaste I've ever purchased, except for one. Gerard Judd recommended bar soap on his site, and that was generally okay, but I'd have to double-brush (soap followed with baking soda) to get rid of the taste.

    --
    Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
    www.teslabox.com