Optical and structural properties are presented for GaN nanorods (NRs) grown in the [0001] direction on Si(111) substrates by direct-current reactive magnetron sputter epitaxy. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) reveals clusters of dense stacking faults (SFs) regularly distributed along the c-axis. A strong emission line at ∼3.42 eV associated with the basal-plane SFs has been observed in luminescence spectra. The optical signature of SFs is stable up to room temperatures with the activation energy of ∼20 meV. Temperature-dependent time-resolved photoluminescence properties suggest that the recombination mechanism of the 3.42 eV emission can be understood in terms of multiple quantum wells self-organized along the growth axis of NRs.