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]

Enjoy!