Pentlandite with Pyrrhotite

specimen number:
2262068

location:
Worthington Mine, Sudbury, Ontario, Canada

description:
Metallic pentlanditethroughout a massive pyrrhotite matrix. The specimen comes with an old label from Ward's Natural ScienceEstablishment in Rochester, New York as seen at the end of the video.

The Worthington Mine, located in the Sudbury District of Ontario, Canada, is a classic example of a magmatic sulfide deposit situated along the Worthington Offset Dyke of the Sudbury Igneous Complex. Geologically, the deposit formed as nickel-copper-platinum group element (PGE) mineralization hosted within quartz diorite, where cooling magma concentrated heavy metal sulfides. The mine is a significant source of pentlandite, which occurs as bronze-yellow metallic masses and granular aggregates, typically intergrown with pyrrhotite and chalcopyrite. Historically, mining and quarrying at the site began in the late 1880s and continued until a catastrophic ground failure in 1927 led to the sudden collapse of the mine workings and the subsequent abandonment of the original townsite. Following decades of inactivity, the area saw renewed industrial interest, and as of 2026, the site remains an important historical and geological reference point for the study of offset dyke mineralization in the Sudbury Basin.

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