Barite

specimen number:
1052770

location:
Frizington, Cumbria, England, UK

description:
A wonderful cluster of lustrous thick blue tabular barite crystals with little attached hematite. Very minimal cleaving present, I feel that this is in really good condition. The specimen comes with an antique label as shown at the end of the video. The specimen was originally acquired through American dealer Lazard Cahn in 1913.

The Frizington mining district, situated in West Cumbria, England, was an internationally celebrated producer of exceptionally high-grade hematite iron ore and world-class mineral specimens. Geologically, the deposit consists of massive, irregular replacement bodies and fault-controlled vein systems hosted within Carboniferous-age Limestone formations, which are overlain by Permo-Triassic red sedimentary strata. Highly concentrated, iron-rich basinal fluids migrated along regional fault networks, dissolving the carbonate host rocks and precipitating dense, botryoidal masses of hematite, famously known as kidney ore, while creating vast open cavities that allowed the growth of spectacular, highly collectible mineral specimens, most notably lustrous blue and amber fluorite, clear double-terminated baryte, and iconic bar-binned twin calcite crystals. Historically, while shallow open-cut quarrying and iron smelting occurred intermittently from medieval times, large-scale industrial underground shaft mining boomed after 1850 to satisfy the immense demand of the British Industrial Revolution and local ironworks. Famous operations in the Frizington area, including the Parkside, Mowbray, and High House mines, operated under intense corporate development throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Due to the gradual exhaustion of the easily accessible ore bodies, extreme underground water pumping costs, and competition from cheaper global imports, production rapidly declined after World War I, leading to the permanent closure of all major industrial mining operations in the Frizington sector by the mid-1930s.

Lazard Cahn (1865-1940) was a prominent American mineral dealer and self-taught crystallographer based in Colorado Springs who became one of the most respected figures in the field during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He was widely recognized for his exceptional ability to identify rare species and for his meticulous study of crystal forms, eventually having the borate mineral cahnite named in his honor. Cahn operated a high-end mineral dealership that catered to major museums and elite private collectors, specializing in rare alpine minerals and classic American localities. His professional career was marked by significant contributions to mineralogical literature, including his work on the micromounting of specimens and his detailed descriptions of complex twinning laws.

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