Pyromorphite (old classic material)

Item Description

The famous lead-copper mining area of Roughton Gill in Northern England produced some of the great old classics from any European locality. Species like, Mimetite and Pyromorphite are some of the most well-known from Roughton Gill, and this piece is a nice representative example featuring attractive yellow-green somewhat spherical crystal aggregates and hexagonal prisms sitting on matrix. The largest crystal group measures up to 1.0 cm across. You can really feel the lead in this piece, as it's fairly dense for its size. There are some contacted areas, so the piece is not pristine, but it's not common to find these on market anymore, and this piece was certainly mined over 100 years ago. From the worldwide mineral collection of Albert Lewis Kidwell (January 1, 1919 - August 16, 2008). Al was a well-known mineral collector and research geologist with Carter Oil Company and later Exxon Oil Company in Houston, Texas. The phosphate species Kidwellite was named in his honor in 1974 ( https://www.mindat.org/photo-326405.html ).