T-Rex Dinosaur Skull Carving in UV Fluorescent Sodalite Syenite

T-Rex 🦖

A carved dinosaur skull in fluorescent syenite. Palm-sized, with a defined eye socket, fenestra, and upper and lower tooth rows carved into the stone.

In daylight the piece reads as weathered bone. The matrix is gray and black speckled with rust-red iron staining running through it, and the pattern differs on every skull.

Under 365nm UV light, the sodalite inside the stone fluoresces bright orange. The glow follows the natural mineral veining rather than the carved detail, so the lit pattern is unique to each piece.

About the stone

This is a new one for the store! Syenite is a coarse-grained igneous rock formed as magma cooled slowly underground. It resembles granite but contains little to no quartz, built instead from alkali feldspar with darker hornblende and biotite scattered through it. When sodalite is present in the matrix, the rock fluoresces orange under longwave UV. This material is also known in the collector market as Yooperlite.

The fluorescence comes from the mineral itself, not from a coating or treatment, and it does not fade with handling or time.

Details

• Material: fluorescent sodalite syenite, source unverified
• Approximate size: fits in the palm of the hand
• Fluoresces orange under 365nm longwave UV
• Hand-carved from natural stone
• One piece, selected from current stock unless otherwise noted

Notes

Best viewed with a 365nm UV flashlight in a dark room. 395nm lights and standard blacklight bulbs produce a much weaker response.

Color, glow density, and matrix pattern vary between pieces. This is a stone carving, not a fossil specimen.