Octarine

[bloodyrosemccoy]

You know you’re a serious science fiction writer when you find yourself wondering how to look up just what trace impurities in a gemstone would give it an ultraviolet color—so it’d appear colorless to us but be brilliantly shaded to some other species with a different visible spectrum.

Yes, dudes, I take this stuff seriously.

Granted, this may stem from when I was a kid and I would try my damndest to imagine completely new colors. I don’t think it ever quite worked, but I sure did work at it. But it turns out it’s not for lack of wiring, so there’s still hope!

Comments

[agenttrojie.livejournal.com]

No, you make absolute sense. I'll do some more digging for you as to likely candidates for pink surface rocks. But as it's a moon, I'm guessing no past atmosphere, no hydrosphere? So hydroxides, carbonates etc are probably out? Volcanic activity's probably your best bet. In which case, you could have, say, a rhyolite with a really high K-spar content ...

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Ooh, that might work!

I'm thinking it started out with a thin atmosphere which gradually degraded, and there may be some ice that used to be liquid in the deeper crevices, so there could be a certain amount of carbonates or hydroxides.

[agenttrojie.livejournal.com]

I'll get on it when I'm home :D it sounds like fun. But a good moonwide rhyolitic catastrophe could be entertaining ...

[http://users.livejournal.com/_wastrel/]

I'll do some more digging
Was that intentional or incidental?

[agenttrojie.livejournal.com]

Incidental ... but yay, pun :P