Is anglesite fluorescent?
Sometimes: the Handbook says anglesite, PbSO4, may fluoresce yellow under UV, naming no band. Three FMDB specimens and five yellow associates, e.g. cerussite.
Sometimes. The Handbook sheet for anglesite, lead sulfate of hardness 2.5 to 3, says only “May fluoresce yellow under UV”, without naming longwave or shortwave. The 3 FMDB records fill the gap unevenly: yellow under longwave at Touissit, white under shortwave at Monteponi. And 5 of the 14 associates on its sheet also print yellow.
In short
- The sheet’s words. The Handbook of Mineralogy anglesite sheet prints one line, “May fluoresce yellow under UV.”, after its hardness (2.5–3) and density (6.38). May: some specimens and not others. Yellow: the only colour. UV: no band. The International Gem Society cerussite article comparison table gives anglesite “Weak yellowish.”, also with no band. These agree with is cerussite fluorescent.
- The three records. There are exactly 3 Fluorescent Mineral Society database (FMDB) anglesite records. Touissit, Morocco: yellow under a 365 nm longwave LED. Monteponi, Sardinia: purple under longwave and green under a 305 nm midwave lamp. Monteponi again: white under a 254 nm shortwave lamp. Longwave appears in 2 records, midwave and shortwave in 1 each; both localities are on the sheet’s Distribution field.
- The associate yellow check. The sheet names 14 associates. A ligature-aware script over their sheets finds fluorescence printed on 5, and every one of them names yellow: cerussite (yellow, LW), leadhillite (pale yellow, UV), lanarkite (yellow, X-rays and LW), mimetite (reddish yellow, LW or SW) and pyromorphite (yellow to orange, LW and SW). The other 9 print none.
- Documented failure: yellow does not say whose glow. A yellow patch on an anglesite specimen could be anglesite or any of those five neighbours. And the records disagree with themselves: record 68’s description reads weak yellowish fluorescence in SW-UV, but its summary line says White; record 60’s description pairs LW with “(purple)” in brackets, and the record does not say whether that is the glow or the lamp.
- Lamps and lead. Test under both bands, since the sheet names neither; lamp types are on the best UV lamp for mineral collecting. UV exposure limits for 180 to 400 nm are in the ICNIRP 2004 guidelines on limits of exposure to ultraviolet radiation; this page is not safety advice. Anglesite is 68.33% lead; hazard questions go to toxic minerals in a collection, which is not advice.
| Mineral or record | Source | What it prints | Band(s) named | Yellow? | Density; 20.00 g in water |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anglesite | Handbook sheet | May fluoresce yellow under UV | Not named | Yes | 6.38; 16.87 g |
| Anglesite | IGS comparison table | Weak yellowish. | Not named | Yes | 6.30–6.39 (IGS) |
| Anglesite, Touissit, Morocco | FMDB record 1350 | Yellow | Longwave (365 nm LED) | Yes | — |
| Anglesite, Monteponi, Sardinia | FMDB record 60 | Purple; green | Longwave (365 nm LED); midwave (305 nm) | No | — |
| Anglesite, Monteponi, Sardinia | FMDB record 68 | White (description: weak yellowish) | Shortwave (254 nm) | Summary no; description yes | — |
| Cerussite | Handbook sheet | May fluoresce yellow under LW UV | LW | Yes | 6.55; 16.95 g |
| Leadhillite | Handbook sheet | May fluoresce pale yellow under UV | Not named | Yes | 6.55; 16.95 g |
| Lanarkite | Handbook sheet | Fluoresces yellow under X-rays and LW UV | LW | Yes | 6.92; 17.11 g |
| Mimetite | Handbook sheet | May fluoresce reddish yellow under LW or SW UV | LW or SW | Yes | 7.24; 17.24 g |
| Pyromorphite | Handbook sheet | May fluoresce yellow to orange under LW and SW UV | LW and SW | Yes | 7.04; 17.16 g |
| Caledonite, linarite, brochantite, malachite, wulfenite, massicot, gypsum, sulfur, galena | Handbook sheets (9) | Nothing on fluorescence | — | — | — |
Does anglesite glow under UV? What the sheet says
One line. The Handbook of Mineralogy anglesite sheet closes its physical properties with “May fluoresce yellow under UV.” It does not name longwave or shortwave, and it says may. The mineral it describes is PbSO4, Pb(SO4) on the September 2026 IMA list (G, 1832, United Kingdom): orthorhombic, hardness 2.5 to 3, density 6.38, colourless to white and commonly tinted grey, adamantine, with a white streak, and 68.33% lead by mass, as on anglesite and is anglesite a sulfate. A 20.00 g piece reads 16.87 g in water.
A second source. The International Gem Society cerussite article compares anglesite, cerussite and phosgenite and gives anglesite’s fluorescence as “Weak yellowish.”, again with no band, while giving cerussite “Can be yellow in LW. Pale blue/green in SW.” Two sources, one colour, no band: what the band is has to come from specimens. Fluorescence in general is on fluorescent minerals explained.
Longwave or shortwave? Three FMDB records
What the database holds. The FMDB anglesite page, read on 12 November 2026, links exactly 3 specimen records. Record 1350, Touissit, Jerada Province, Morocco: “Fluorescence under Longwave (365nm LED) UV light: Yellow”. Record 60, Monteponi mine, Iglesias, Sardinia: “Purple” under the same longwave LED and “Green” under a 305 nm midwave mercury lamp. Record 68, also Monteponi: “White” under a 254 nm shortwave mercury lamp. Both places are on the anglesite sheet’s Distribution field: Monteponi near Iglesias, and fine crystals at the Touissit mine, near Oujda.
Reading three records. Longwave is named in 2 records, midwave in 1 and shortwave in 1; no record lists all three bands, and none lists an afterglow. Yellow, the sheet’s colour, appears in one summary line. Three records from two mines are a description of three specimens, not a frequency for anglesite; the FMDB is a collectors’ database of chosen pieces. The colour survey method used for a mineral with many records is on is aragonite fluorescent and is not repeated here.
The associate yellow check: whose glow is it?
Method. The anglesite sheet names 14 associates: cerussite, leadhillite, lanarkite, caledonite, linarite, brochantite, malachite, mimetite, pyromorphite, wulfenite, massicot, gypsum, sulfur and galena. A script read each Handbook sheet (pdftotext -layout; the sulfur sheet is filed as sulphur.pdf) and matched uoresc with any character before it, because pdftotext renders the fl ligature as a stray glyph on some sheets. Its positive controls, hemimorphite (“may °uoresce bluish under SW UV”) and willemite (“strongly °uorescent in yellow-green to yellow-orange”), both matched.
Result. 5 of the 14 sheets print fluorescence, and all 5 name yellow: cerussite, may fluoresce yellow under LW UV; leadhillite, may fluoresce pale yellow under UV; lanarkite, fluoresces yellow under X-rays and LW UV; mimetite, may fluoresce reddish yellow under LW or SW UV; pyromorphite, may fluoresce yellow to orange under LW and SW UV. The other 9, caledonite, linarite, brochantite, malachite, wulfenite, massicot, gypsum, sulfur and galena, print nothing on fluorescence.
Documented failure. So a yellow glow on a specimen labelled anglesite does not show that the anglesite is glowing: five of its recorded neighbours print the same colour, and record 1350’s own description mentions a little galena on the top and bottom, a reminder that specimens are mixtures. Density helps little: the yellow group’s 20.00 g in-water weights run from 16.87 g (anglesite) to 17.24 g (mimetite), cerussite and leadhillite share 16.95 g, and anglesite sits only 0.08 g below them, as the table shows. The cerussite version of this problem is on is cerussite fluorescent; the separation of anglesite from galena by streak is on anglesite or galena.
When the records disagree with themselves
Record 68. Its description reads “Weak yellowish fluorescence in SW-UV.”; its summary line reads White under shortwave. The table above gives both. This page does not choose between them; either way the record names shortwave, which is all the band count above uses.
Record 60. Its description reads “Anglesite from Monteponi under natural light, LW (purple) and MW (greenish) UV.” and its summary lists Purple under longwave and Green under midwave. The record does not say whether “(purple)” describes the mineral’s glow or the visible light of the lamp, so this page reports it as printed and draws no conclusion from it. Other single-mineral lamp pages include is wulfenite UV reactive and is sphalerite UV reactive.
How to read an anglesite under the lamp
What the sources support. Test under both longwave and shortwave, because the sheet names no band and the three records split between them. Note the colour and band with the locality. A dark result under one lamp is consistent with the sheet’s may; a yellow result is consistent with anglesite and with five of its associates, so it confirms nothing on its own. This page gives no activator or cause for the glow: none of the sources fetched prints one.
Lamps, lead and the rest. Lamp choice is on the best UV lamp for mineral collecting; UV exposure limits between 180 and 400 nm are in the ICNIRP 2004 guidelines on limits of exposure to ultraviolet radiation, and this page is not safety advice. Anglesite is 68.33% lead; hazard questions are routed to toxic minerals in a collection, and that is not advice either. More guides are in the collecting guides. We hold no catalogue and nothing here is offered for sale; the wanted list is the only commercial route.