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Ancient alchemists labored to convert one substance into another, to change base metals into gold. The process of fluorescence, in a kind of optical alchemy, converts invisible ultraviolet radiation -- 'black light' -- into gold ... or blue, green, orange, red, or any other color of the spectrum. Corals that appear only a dull brown in the daytime or under white light may take on vivid rainbow hues. The result is strikingly beautiful, but few people have seen it, especially in the natural environment, and the process is still not well understood. The function, if any, of the fluorescence is unknown, and is the subject of current research.
Fluorescence is physics, fluorescence is biology, and fluorescence is beauty. At one level we are dealing with quantum processes and excited electron states in molecules; at another we are viewing chemical substances that play some role in the lives of these reef invertebrates; while at the third we are seeing colors and patterns that are normally not revealed to the eye, effects that are often strikingly vivid in their spectral purity and appealing for their abstract patterns.
On this page you will some photographic examples of coral fluorescence, comparing the appearance under ultraviolet light with that seen with more ordinary photographic techniques. The pictures were all taken in the natural environment, using underwater photographic equipment specially modified for the purpose.
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The photograph on the left was made using a commercial underwater flash in the normal way, where it puts out a blast of white light. The subject is a small colony of large star coral (Montastrea cavernosa) on the side of a shipwreck at about 17 meters (55 feet) depth in Roatan, Honduras. The subject on the right is exactly the same, except that for this image the flash emitted only ultraviolet light, causing the coral colony to fluoresce as you see it here. The photographs were made at night, since you need dark surroundings to make good fluorescence photographs. There have been several exhibits of these photographs, at MIT's Strobe Alley and at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, DC.
MORE PICTURES:
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Besides photographing fluorescence, I make quantitative measurements of fluorescence excitation and emission spectra. Below are two pictures, reflected visible light on the left, fluorescence on the right, of a specimen of Trachophyllia sp., an Indo-Pacific coral. Below the pictures is a 3-D excitation/emission spectrum from the yellow-fluorescent pigment of this coral.
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If you are interested in this sort of thing, I would be happy to correspond with you mazel@psicorp.com
