Calcite on Fluorite

Unknown Owner

Help improve this recordNo owner is registered for this specimen yet. If it's yours or you know more about it, you can add the owner, provenance, publications and other details.

It is rare that we see any specimen from Rotherhope Fell mine in the Alston Moor District, Cumbria, but to come across such a large, and showy combination specimen such as this is exceptional. It comes from the Martin Kershaw Collection (no. 270) and is undoubtedly very old - the workings having been flooded since at least the 1970s, probably earlier. Known for its exceptionally high quality Fluorite, sometimes as quite large, gemmy, and coloured zoned crystals, it is much rarer to see large Calcite crystals like this in combination. This stunning, very large display specimen consists of a thin bed of cubic Fluorite crystals, individually reaching to 3 cm on edge, and showing an intense green colour of the rear side and greyish on the upper side where the larger cubes are developed. This Fluorite is preferentially coated on the upper surface by uniformly small, sugary, bipyramidal Quartz crystals upon which large fin-like to lenticular Calcite crystals rise. These Calcite crystals are simply stunning, but do show minor wear due to age. Never-the-less this is a dramatic Rotherhope Fell specimen of which few exist in private hands. The Calcite fluoresces orange red and the Fluorite violet blue under longwave UV light.