I actually may have the answer to this.
A while ago, I did a pesticide remediation on some distillate with myclo in it. I used wayyy too much Magsil and when I heated my heptane beyond 50C when recovering, it turned purple instantly. I realized I used 4x too much magsil and quarantined the purple batch of solvent as well as the over treated but unheated portion of the batch. The rest went according to plan, though the resulting distillate had a purple ring of death instead of red.
I did a bit of research about magnesium silicate itself and it is actually a very common adsorbent used in commercial frying operations. When frying for long periods, triglycerides break down into all sorts of gunk. Several websites advertise that magnesium silicate is used to remove free fatty acids, mono/diglycerides, rancid fatty acids and other polymerized gunk from fry oil.
I had a bit of stearic acid lying around my lab (18 carbon free fatty acid) so I decided to add about 1mL to the overtreated sample (would turn purple if heated). Upon heating, there was no change in color up to 90C for several minutes whereas the control sample would turn purple rapid after heating to only 50C for 10 seconds. Needless to say I was quite happy that I was able to salvage the color of the overtreated batch. It was getting pretty late so I covered the containers with the purple solution expecting to scrap it, but just for the hell of it, I put a pipette full of stearic acid in each of the purple jars. I come back the next day, and holy shit, the purple color is gone. I should also note that during distillation, the distillate was water clear, however, the residue in the still turned purple after only a few minutes being exposed to the atmosphere.
My hypothesis is that there is some kind of oxidation reaction occurring. My best guess is that the color indicates a reaction being catalyzed by trace heavy metals that were initially chelated by the free fatty acids but are now being coordinated by much less sterically hindered ligands and/or ones with more reactive orbital symmetries. This is very likely a kind of THC quinone that is forming due to the very strong purple color; as many know, cannabinoid quinones are very strongly colored.
This reaction also seems to be reversible indicated by the addition of free fatty acids several hours after the addition reverses the color change, however I’m not sure to what degree because there are several other compounds that can form from THC quniones that are not colored (see papers on HU-331). Pretty cool stuff though.
I think the main reason this occurs with converted distillate is the starting materials are very pure and particularly lack free fatty acids, which inhibit the purple color in one way or the other. Distillate made from flower still has many lipid compounds (like FFAs) that make it through extraction, post processing and distillation and ultimately prevent the purple color many people are seeing.
@Antarctic_Lands This may be something that helps you out. Feel free to hit me up, I can probably give you a quick procedure to help you test this out with ingredients you have kicking around your lab.