DENDRITIC PYRITE - Yorkshire (Philadelphia Academy of Sciences specimen)
« backDENDRITIC PYRITE CRYSTALS
Ingleton, North Yorkshire
Very unusual and attractive 'dendritic' crystals of pyrite (fool's gold) on a joint plane in slate.
The specimen is from the renowned Philadelphia Academy of Sciences collection in the USA and the original label is included.
The label only gives the locality as 'Yorkshire' but the rock is almost certainly Ordovician slate which occurs in an inlier north-east of Ingleton in Yorkshire. The slate from the ARC roadstone quarry here has produced fairly large cubic crystals of pyrite, and in 1852 the eminent geologist Adam Sedgwick reported in the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society that some of the slates in this area were 'marked with beautiful dendritic coverings of pyrites'. Therefore there seems no doubt that Ingleton is the locality.
As the Philadelphia Academy of Sciences was founded in 1812 it is interesting to speculate whether this specimen was acquired around the time Sedgwick was carrying out his research.
Ingleton, North Yorkshire
Very unusual and attractive 'dendritic' crystals of pyrite (fool's gold) on a joint plane in slate.
The specimen is from the renowned Philadelphia Academy of Sciences collection in the USA and the original label is included.
The label only gives the locality as 'Yorkshire' but the rock is almost certainly Ordovician slate which occurs in an inlier north-east of Ingleton in Yorkshire. The slate from the ARC roadstone quarry here has produced fairly large cubic crystals of pyrite, and in 1852 the eminent geologist Adam Sedgwick reported in the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society that some of the slates in this area were 'marked with beautiful dendritic coverings of pyrites'. Therefore there seems no doubt that Ingleton is the locality.
As the Philadelphia Academy of Sciences was founded in 1812 it is interesting to speculate whether this specimen was acquired around the time Sedgwick was carrying out his research.
Size: 21 x 10 x 2.5 centimetres
Weight: 1.13 kilograms
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