Recently a vein of fluorite (fluorospar if you're old-fashioned) has been rediscovered in the Castleton mine after 68 years. (See below for the link).Blue John, a corruption of the French bleu-jaune, is so named after its distinctive purple-blue colour with yellowish banding. Personally to my eyes I've never really seen the blue in even good pieces of Blue John, more just extremely attractive shades of purple but apparently no one sees colours the same as someone else so I guess such debate is moot. (I've probably only seen one real piece of Blue John in the stone so to speak anyway).
Rare geological curios always seem to make their way into fiction, in fact one of my very-guilty pleasure reads, the Lovejoy novel, 'The ten word game' by Jonathan Gash features two Blue John pieces, Edwardian set Amethyst, the legendary Amber Room, a page on the rarity of early Russian set Alexandrite jewellery and why perfume is a killer for pearls (amongst other things).
The Koh-I-Noor has featured as a major plot device in an episode of 'Doctor Who' for instance ('Tooth and Claw' for the interested) and thefts of rare diamonds, both fictional and non-fictional have featured in crime stories for many years. Quite a lot of gems have stories more romantic or gripping than many made up tales.
Gems, with their great wealth and rarity are symbols throughout fiction.
In 'Stardust' by Neill Gaiman the symbol of power of the Stormhold thrown rests in a Topaz crystal. In the 'Lord of the Rings' Aragorn possesses the Ring of Barahir ("Two serpents with emerald eyes. One devouring, the other crowned with golden flowers.") which represents his true heritage, and, in the film adaptation, he carries the Evenstar given to him by Arwen half-elf as a symbol of their love.
But there's one geological oddity that doesn't get much good press in fiction and that is geologists themselves. Often portrayed as a stereotype, the film geologist is slightly dorky, often bearded and never the hero. There's no 'Indiana Jones' of geology. At least not yet. (The closest we've come is probably the faux-docu-drama 'Supervolcano' produced by the BBC).
You could argue the reason for this is that geology just doesn't have the same romantic history as Archaeology. True for every five digs outside Cairo that Archaeologists dug during the Edwardian there was only one geologist... and he was probably walking around a muddy field in Scotland being paid by the mile of geological contact he found. (You could also make some jokes about a film about geology moving at a glacial pace but that would be mean).
Now I'm not here bemoaning the lack of geologists in fiction. I'm sure a lot of professionals whose professions are represented in literature and television cringe at the miss-representation so I'm certainly not asking for that. My point is more that it's nice to see the very romantic side of geology, gemmology, enriching literature. Perhaps the mention of a Alexandrite necklace in a book might be just enough to lead someone to find out about the Russian emerald trade and Tsar Alexander II.
It's like that word association game....
Black,
White,
Snow,
Cold,
Antarctica,
Ice,
Diamonds,
Jewels,
Queen Elizabeth,
Prince George... (Sorry, couldn't resist since everyone else is going on about him!)
I might write again soon on other geological curios in fiction et cetera.
References:
The Blue John mine discovery: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-23559735
Blue John bowl picture: http://www.bluejohn-cavern.co.uk/products/blue-john-bowl.php
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