I think most people know that when France sent us the Statue of Liberty it had to be assembled – and it was also a pretty copper color, not a hint of green in sight.
It has been that trademark green for as long as anyone alive can recall, though.
Some folks think it’s time to change all that, and restore her to her original shine.
The American Chemical Society explains how the color changed over the centuries.
“In her first few decades in the Big Apple, the statue slowly turned from that shiny copper color to a dull brown and then finally to the blue-green, or as they’d say back in France, ‘verdigris,’ we see today.”
First, the copper reacted with oxygen in the air, giving up electrons and leading to the mineral cuprite, a pinkish-red.
Next, the cuprite gave up more electrons to oxygen and formed tenorite. It’s black, causing the statue’s color to darken even more.
The water in the atmosphere mixed with sulfur, producing sulfuric acid that mixed with the copper oxides on the statue.
This is when it began to turn its now-distinctive green color, which was enhanced by chloride added by sea spray.
The exposed copper is now chemically stable, which is why it has remained green, but underneath the outermost layer, it should still be the original hue.
While the movement to restore the color is popular on some social media platforms, others think that the green color is what’s recognized around the world, and that’s what it should stay.
Of course, even if we buffed away the outer layer, the same process of transition would happen to the new outer layer, in time.
So perhaps she is now as she was always destined to be.
If you thought that was interesting, you might like to read about 50 amazing finds on Google Earth.