Sciacca Mystery what a great research!

Thank you so much dott.Giuseppe Rajola!
Lost Island Project is proud to have you as an active supporter of our research and we are very glad to have you in our team!
Thank you for all your outstanding work!
We hope you enjoy reading with us his incredible research on the Sciacca Coral.
Reserach is knowledge...

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Sciacca Mystery the End pt.V

From the sea, in 15 years of work, non continuous as we have seen, well over 14 million kg of coral were extracted! An unimaginable amount for the human mind to grasp. But how much is still there, in the sea? And how much is buried underneath the lava that must have spewed out of the mouths of these volcanoes in the course of millenniums? And even before?
An engineer friend of mine, one who builds roads, amused himself making a calculation: with such a mass of coral, we could have paved the entire highway from Trapani to Trieste!
I submitted the results of this final analysis to Margherita Superchi who, as I expected, said: “I would like to do a Knoop hardness test.”
Perhaps many are familiar with the Mohs hardness scale. This is an empirical meter, a simple enough device, that we owe to Austrian naturalist Friederich Mohs, who lived between the 1700s and 1800s and that is used to assess the hardness of materials that exist in nature. The scale starts with talk, the softest of materials, and ends with diamonds, which are perhaps the hardest. According to the Mohs scale coral is level 3, a material that can be scratched using a steel tip.
Since 1839 (when Mohs died) new methods have been experimented that are more precise and scientifically accurate. The most appropriate to our case, according to Margherita Superchi, was the Knoop hardness measurement, from the name of another researcher, Frederick Knoop, who tested it for the first time in 1939 in the laboratories of the National Bureau of Standards, in the United States.
So I prepared the corals, and sent them to the Institute of Science and Technology of Ceramic Materials in Faenza, the pride and joy of the National Research Council.
A little more than one week later we received the results. They may be difficult to understand by those not familiar with this work but in simple terms the results confirm that, in fact, the coral of Sciacca, in addition to changing its color and basic components, also modified its hardness.
The Coral of Sciacca has no more secrets, at least concerning its origin and morphological characteristics.
Now I know why it “chimed”. My research is finished.
And to think that it all began with a child’s game...
The conversations with Margherita Superchi, the sample sent to the CISGEM, the first analyses with the Raman. Then the chemical composition by Robert Bodnar, when the going really got serious! And the radiocarbon datings… one, two, three, four. And, finally, the Knoop hardness tests.
A long road. Long and fascinating.
Someone might wonder: what for? I don’t have the right answer to that.
If this someone exists I could say that many of man’s discoveries in the course of millenniums were the result of a thirst for knowledge, of curiosity, of the desire to know what lies around the corner. That’s what it was like for me, and with the mystery of the Sciacca Coral.

The End.
[text taken with license from the author Giuseppe Rajola from the book Sciacca Mystery]

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Sciacca Mystery the End pt.IV

After the euphoria, the joy, the satisfaction, I realized that four thousand years was too... little! Things didn’t quite match up! I decided to make one final attempt. I took another piece of coral from Sciacca, blackened and full of holes and sent it to CEDAD.
On the following page I submit the results of the tests.

7,000-7,500 years Before Christ! In other words, 9,000-9,500 years ago! For I needed to add the two thousand years from year zero – the year of the birth of Christ – to the present, give or take a year.
Now it made sense. In other words, something extraordinary had happened in the area of the volcanic system Empedocles over several millenniums.
Every underwater volcanic phenomenon, with its production of gas, magma, smoke, ashes, raises the temperature of the water even by as much as 1,000 degrees, as maintained by Prof. Gianni Lanzafame, whom I contacted regarding this.
These temperatures, of course, cause the instantaneous death of all forms of marine life in the area. Obviously even coral. The experiments carried out by Superchi and Bodnar indicated why the coral changed from red to orange and, especially, what happened to its chemical composition, profoundly transformed by the increase in iron, manganese, copper and uranium that caused it to lose the characteristics of organic material. Thus the reason it was preserved until now. In an area so profoundly affected by marine volcanic activity through centuries and centuries, imagine how many events there must have been.
Every time there was an eruption, the same phenomenon was repeated: the water in the sea became overheated and this, together with the substances spewed by the underwater volcanoes, modified the structure of the coral, transforming it from organic to inorganic. In other words – turning it to stone. All the coral in the area, and there was a considerable amounts these seas were rich in plankton, separated from the walls upon which it was growing and accumulated on the bottom, in the deepest areas, specifically the Graham Shoal.
And this for thousands and thousands of years. Not only: I would like to emphasise another aspect that is no less important for our research. It is true that every time there was an underwater eruption this killed all forms of life; It is also true that, once the eruption ends, what remains is a habitat very rich in mineral salts, where the sea water creates an interchange between the area of the volcanic activity and the immediate vicinity not affected by the volcanic activity. Thus in a few years, the site of the eruptions is once again rich in life, marine flora and fauna that rush to re-inhabit it. And so the coral also, within a few years, will once again populate these new, virgin rocks, to continue this extraordinary cycle of nature...
In an article he wrote a few years ago Mimmo Macaluso describes one of his immersions to the Isola Ferdinandea: “It’s almost surreal. We are immersed in another world, beautiful and unsettling, pullulating with life. The materials that erupted in 1831 and more recently, very rich in minerals, were an exceptional support to the growth of numerous species of algae that found nourishment and sustenance. The same applies to the fish as in this very deep area of the Mediterranean they can find refuge and food.”

This is the exact confirmation of my theory. And the same goes for coral, naturally, which changed its nature and amassed on the bottom of the sea.
Until one fine day Bertu Ammareddu comes around...

To Be Continued...
[text taken with license from the author Giuseppe Rajola from the book Sciacca Mystery]

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Sciacca Mystery the End pt.III


Radiocarbon tests, for those who may not be aware, determine the date of a body, object or material. So far the tests on the Sciacca samples had proven that this coral had been, how I can say it, a victim of volcanic phenomena. But we already knew this: the entire area we are talking about is full of large and small active craters.
Bodnar’s tests demonstrated something more: the volcanic phenomena had modified the very composition, the chemical make-up of the coral, infusing it with the elements of volcanic emissions rich in iron, manganese, copper and uranium.
An extreme, perhaps definitive step was now being proposed: dating the coral by radiocarbon tests. I didn’t know whether I was more excited or more frightened... At any rate I said yes.
“There is a Center of Excellence (that is in southern Italy) where they do these things and do them very well. I am speaking of the CEDAD, the Dating and Diagnostic Center of the University of Salento, Department of Engineering and Innovation, in Lecce.”
“I will call them tomorrow and see if they can help us out.”
The following morning Margherita Superchi called me back and said that she had spoken with the CEDAD: they’re waiting for the rough samples and are happy to take part in this adventure.
“Choose two or three samples and send them”, she said in her simultaneously sweet and peremptory tone...
Sounds easy: what pieces of coral do I choose? Which are the most suitable? This isn’t like the lots of new, live coral that I buy...
I found these at home, they were left by my great -grandfather... and I don’t know exactly where they’re from... Just that they come from Sciacca.
From among the rough coral of Sciacca I chose two very different pieces, one a beautiful intense orange color and the other of a duller color, slightly blackened. Then I added a third piece: a piece of mud, or rather ash of volcanic origin, torn from the sea and containing many small branches of coral of a deep orange color... those were the three samples to be examined...
One month later I was taking part in a working group when I received a call on my mobile... it was from Milan.
I answered: it was Margherita Superchi. Such a discreet, attentive person as she must have good reasons to call me on my mobile.
“Am I disturbing you? Sorry, I called you at your office and they told me you were at a meeting. But I couldn’t wait any longer, I had to talk to you: I have the dates from Lecce. Are you sitting down?
“Listen: sample S2, the deep orange color is dated – give or take a year - approximately 2,000/2,400 years ago, sample S3, the one that’s slightly blackened, dates back to 4,000/4,400 years ago and the mud to 2,300/2,500 years ago. Your theory is confirmed in full!”
Of course my meeting ended in that instant. The people who were with me will remember: I was so excited I couldn’t contain myself… and I’m usually so self-contained. The radiocarbon tests had proven that the coral torn from the sea by the coral boats, passage after passage over the bank (or rather over the deposit, as Mazzarelli would say) was more damaged and thus older, more ancient.
Four thousand years ago: this coral was growing and dying four thousand years ago, when those seas were being sailed, just think, by Phoenicians, Egyptians, Cretans... the time when the Hammurabi code was being written, the period in which Stonehenge was being completed in England, near Salisbury, the years in which the Palace of Knossos was being constructed in Crete!

And yet there was still something that did not convince me...

To Be Continued...
[text taken with license from the author Giuseppe Rajola from the book Sciacca Mystery]

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Sciacca Mystery the End pt.II

 

A university professor friend of mine came to my aid by telling me that in the U.S., there was a certain Professor Robert Bodnar at Virginia Tech University, a geochemist, and that he was conducting some very interesting experiments using highly advanced instruments. An American! Talk about coral to an American! Lord help us!
I send him an email, introducing myself and explaining what I was looking for. He told me to send him some samples, but that he couldn’t promise anything.
Right away! The samples immediately left by super fast courier and from that moment on, for a month, I heard nothing. I didn’t have the courage to write or call, to disturb him, or perhaps because I didn’t want to hear that he had no time to waste on such nonsense.
Instead, after approximately two months of anguish, one fine day I received an email... Bodnar has answered, and what an answer!!! He had worked and how! I include the complete report of the analyses that professor Bodnar carried out: they are extremely interesting.
For our purposes, at this time, I believe what Bodnar writes in his e-mail will be sufficient:
“The analyses carried out using the ICPMS System (Laser Ablation Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry) show very interesting results.
“The corals of Sciacca, compared to other corals, are greatly enriched by iron, manganese, copper and uranium. These are elements associated with underwater volcanic and hydrothermal activity, thus your theory that the coral of Sciacca is in some way connected to volcanic activity appears to be confirmed.”
This was the second piece of our puzzle: the chemical composition of the Sciacca coral had modified... thus its special characteristics: color, sound, hardness.
Margherita Superchi, to whom I immediately sent the results of Bodnar’s research, was enthusiastic and fascinated. And she proposed “what do you say we do some radiocarbon dating tests?”

To Be Continued...
[text taken with license from the author Giuseppe Rajola from the book Sciacca Mystery]

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Sciacca Mystery the End pt I

I don’t know if the same thing happens to you. But sometimes you meet someone and are immediately attracted, someone you can talk with, someone who understands your dreams and ideas and with whom you feel completely at ease. Persons on the same wave length as you, who are endowed with the greatest gift the good Lord gave to man: the ability to listen to others, to make them feel at ease.
In my case, one of these persons was, and is, Margherita Superchi. Scientist, gemmologist of international renown, the guiding light and director, for many years, of the CISGEM, one of the most prestigious gemmology centers in the world.
Well, whenever I had (and have) any doubt, when there is a question in my mind, I know who to turn to: Margherita is always there, gentle, kind, ready to answer all my questions, simple or complex as they may be.
A few years ago I spoke to her for the first time of the coral of Sciacca. My company had asked the CISGEM to analyse some stones. One afternoon I was told that there was a dottoressa Superchi on the phone who needed some clarifications.

“Am I disturbing you?”
“Absolutely not. Luckily we are on the phone and you can’t see my hands: I was selecting some pieces of Sciacca coral  for jewellery.”
“Can one still find any of this coral?”
“At sea no, but if you only knew how much of it there is in Torre del Greco, and how jealously it is guarded by our companies...”
And so I spoke to her of the Sciacca epic, of this coral collected in such unimaginable quantities, of my idée fixe: what happened to this coral? Why does it “chime”? How did it get to us?
“Coral – I told her –as you well know, is organic matter. How is it possible that such a vast quantity was accumulated in an area of such modest dimensions, compared to the entire Strait of Sicily?
An area that is also strongly affected by volcanic activity... And why this very singular orange-salmon color? And more: why is it, that when it is picked up, slid along your hands and dropped, it produces such a particular sound?”
“Dottoressa, have you ever seen the coral of Sciacca, have you ever touched it?”
“Listen let’s do this. Send me a few samples of the coral. But not just the rough coral; send me also other corals fished recently, and of which you know the origin. I want to see what happens.”
The following morning several samples of Sciacca coral, as well as coral fished in Sardinia, Croatia etc. left for Milan.
A couple of weeks later, Superchi called me back and said:
“We did some tests with the Raman spectroscope and got some interesting results: I am sure you know that the Raman, to put simply, screens the matter being examined, as if it were tracing its DNA. Well, all the samples you sent me had the same profile, they all have the same origin: they are all Corallium rubrum. With one difference: the coral from Sciacca – how can I make you understand? – has one “peak” less, they have something different from the other coral harvested in Sardinia and Croatia.
“So I tried something: I took two parts of the branches fished recently and heated them... and do you know what happened? They lost their bright red color and became a new, beautiful orange color; then we redid the Raman test and you know what happened? These corals also lost a “peak”!
Now we were getting somewhere: all the pieces of coral sent were of the species Corallium rubrum, if those fished recently were subjected to heating, the red became orange and modified something in their DNA or... what will you! It was a first step.
We needed to understand why this was happening.
“Do you know anyone who can carry out some thorough tests on the chemical composition of this coral?” asked Margherita Superchi.
“Give me a few days and I’ll let you know” I answered.
I didn’t even know where to begin...

To Be Continued...
[text taken with license from the author Giuseppe Rajola from the book Sciacca Mystery]

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