Boracite

$180.00

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Right up there as one of the most inaccessible mines, the Boulby Potash mine extends out beneath the North Sea at a depth of about 1 km below the sea floor. Access is only via a vertical shaft through which the enormous excavators have to be lowered in pieces and reassembled below ground. Producing high quality potassium fertilizer from the extensive evaporitic Sylvite beds, there is also Polyhalite, providing other key chemical elements for plant growth. Mined since the 1990s, this miniature specimen features two of its famous associated borate species - Hilgardite and Boracite. Hilgardite in particular, forms the finest crystals from anywhere in the world and the Boracite from Boulby is extremely well crystallized too. This miniature specimen features both: Hilgardite as pale salmon-pink matrix and Boracite as small pale blue-grey pseudocubic crystals in nodular aggregates. Ex Malcolm Southwood Collection and ex George W. Fletcher Collection, collected by Peter Briscoe in 1996.