The National Taiwan Museum's Apatite Special Exhibition Features the World’s Earliest Research on Penghu Apatite

Article by Li Xinyi, MOOK Scenic Spots Family Travel Life Network, compiled and reported

Taiwan’s first and largest-ever apatite special exhibition—“Unique Vision: The Taiwan Apatite Special Exhibition”—is being held at the National Taiwan Museum from now until February 24, 2013. The most captivating item is the apatite specimen collected by Okamoto Yohachiro (1876–1960), the museum’s founding Japanese mineralogist, which he discovered on the founding day. In 1909, he published the article “Apatite Produced on Penghu Islands Belongs to Aragonite” in the Geological Magazine, which is the world’s earliest mineralogical research literature on apatite. In addition, apatite, which was previously believed to be found only in Penghu and Sicily, has recently also been discovered in areas from Sanxia to Zhudong, and these are also on display at the museum.

The National Taiwan Museum explains that the unique concentric ring patterns found in Taiwanese apatite are also referred to as “aperture eyes.” This is because apatite is mostly found in porous basalt, which often contains vesicles. These vesicles usually form due to gases originally trapped in magma. As the magma erupts from deep underground to the surface to form lava flows, the gases in the magma migrate upward and escape into the air, while some remain trapped within the lava. When the magma cools and solidifies, it forms porous basalt. The presence of vesicles, faults, or fractures in the basalt creates environments similar to geodes, allowing apatite minerals to grow within these spaces. Different chemical compositions, colors, and types of minerals interact to form various crystals, resulting in the beautiful concentric “eyes” of apatite patterns.

It was previously thought that only Taiwan’s Penghu Archipelago and Italy’s Sicily produced apatite. However, the apatite from Sicily does not have the characteristic concentric ring patterns, so Penghu apatite—with its beautiful concentric circles—is considered the most stunning in the world. In recent years, apatite with concentric ring patterns has also been discovered in the basalt of northern Taiwan, from Sanxia to Zhudong, commonly referred to as Sanxia apatite, whose quality rivals that of Penghu apatite. Therefore, the museum specially named the exhibition “Unique Vision” and curated it to showcase both Penghu and Sanxia apatite together for the first time. Visit the museum’s official website at www.ntm.gov.tw.

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