Aragonite

specimen number:
2262277

location:
Frizington, Cumbria, England, UK

description:
Spiky colorless crystals of aragonite measuring to 1.5 cm in size across the top of matrix. Cleaving present as seen. Classic locality for the species. This dates to the very early 1960s, if not earlier.

The Frizington mining district, located within the West Cumberland iron ore field in Cumbria, England, comprised several historic underground operations including the Mowbray, Parkside, and High Cross mines. Geologically, the area is situated on the heavily faulted margin of the Lake District block, where Carboniferous limestone strata were subjected to extensive metasomatic replacement by iron-rich hydrothermal fluids. This process generated massive, irregular ore bodies of high-grade hematite alongside open solution cavities and fault vugs that later allowed for the precipitation of an exceptional suite of secondary minerals, including highly lustrous calcite, baryte, fluorite, and delicate acicular aragonite clusters. Historically, large-scale industrial underground mining commenced in the early 1850s following the discovery of deep iron reserves, and production surged rapidly during the late nineteenth century to supply the booming British steel industry. Commercial extraction systematically declined during the twentieth century as the most accessible and high-grade hematite bodies were progressively exhausted, culminating in the permanent closure of the final major mining shafts in the Frizington sector by the mid-1960s.

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