Pyrite

specimen number:
2102359

location:
Starkville, Oktibbeha Co., Mississippi, USA

description:
A floater crystal grouping of pyrite. No points of attachment and complete all around, this is in good condition.

The pyrite specimens found near Starkville in Oktibbeha County, Mississippi, do not originate from a commercial metal mine or heavy quarrying operation, but are instead collected from natural surface exposures of late Cretaceous sedimentary strata. Geologically, these specimens occur as authigenic diagenetic nodules, radiating crystalline floaters, and fossil replacements hosted within the marls and fine-grained marine limestones of the Selma Group, specifically the Selma Chalk and the overlying Prairie Bluff Chalk formation. These distinctive brassy nodules formed roughly 66 to 70 million years ago in a shallow, reducing marine shelf environment along the Mississippi embayment, where sulfate-reducing bacteria reacted with organic matter and iron-rich sediments to precipitate iron disulfide beneath the ancient seafloor. Because Mississippi lacks indigenous primary metallic ore veins, there has never been any industrial-scale mining or commercial dates of operation for this locality. Instead, the area has served strictly as a classic, long-known surface collecting site where erosion continuously weathers the soft, light-grey chalky matrix of local hillsides and road cuts, exposing the loose, well-crystallized pyrite formations for mineral collectors and paleontologists.

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