MINERALS OF SOUTHERN AND EASTERN ENGLAND
The main areas of Britain that have produced mineral specimens are the mining areas of Cornwall and Devon, Wales, Derbyshire, the Northern Pennines, and the Southern Uplands of Scotland. The east and south-east of England, with its soft, relatively young sedimentary rocks, unaffected by volcanism or tectonic disturbance, have yielded few notable specimens but there are several minerals that have formed crystals in the absence of heat or pressure.
Some of these minerals can be exquisite, for example the beautiful transparent crystals of gypsum (selenite) from the Jurassic and Tertiary clays, the honey-coloured barite crystals from the Fullers Earth of Nutfield in Surrey, and the marcasite and pyrite crystals from the Chalk of Kent and Sussex.
