Fine mineral specimens, crystals and Location specimens from Great Britain and worldwide locations for minerals collectors and museums in sizes from under 1.5cm to over 30cm (Micromount, Thumbnail, Miniature, Cabinet and Musuem sizes)are offered for sale from Steetley Minerals, whose website is named after a defunct Nottinghamshire (UK) quarrying company. The Steetley Minerals website provides information on British mining sites including Cumbria (Caldbeck Fells, The Keswick mining field, the Newlands and Borrowdale field and the Helvellyn Mining Field), Derbyshire, the Yorkshire Dales and North Yorks Moors, Weardale,County Durham, and the Pennine orefield in England as well as the Isle of Skye and Strontian in Scotland. Peter Briscoe of Steetley Minerals is one of the founders of the UKJMM (UK Journal of Mines and Minerals),the leading British magazine for the collector - mineralogist, which publishes articles of interest to mineral collectors, mine historians, museum curators and topographic mineralogists, and a member of the BMS. Steetley Minerals offers a large selection of fine mineral specimens from Great Britain plus a wide selection of worldwide minerals from classic and lesser known locations. Location specimens, of interest to minerals collectors and museums are available. Steetley Minerals exhibits and offers mineral specimens for sale at the regular UK Mineral Shows and selected mineral shows in Europe. Steetley Minerals website is named after the defunct Nottinghamshire quarrying company, which owned and operated quarries in the United Kingdom, including Taffs Well, Llynclys and Whitwell Quarries. In the Pennine orefield fine yellow fluorite mineral specimens from Hilton Mine were found during lead mining activities. The best fluorite groups of transparent, deep yellow lustrous twinned crystals came from the flats worked by Dowscar level at the Hilton Mine. Shap granite contains pink feldspar. Large feldspar crystals with smoky quartz and fluorite in purple octahedrons occur whilst barite, bismuthinite, pyrite and molybdenite are not uncommon at Shap granite quarry. Rare micro material found at Shap includes apatite, bastnasite group minerals, bavenite, bertrandite, chalcopyrite, cosalite, epidote, magnetite, milarite, scheelite, rutile, titanite and wulfenite. The main gangue mineral in the Pennine orefield is Baryte. Barite is used as an aggregate in a "heavy" cement and is used in the manufacture of paints and paper and as an addition to industrial products, or a weighting agent in petroleum well drilling mud. Baryte is the main source of barium. Weardale,County Durham,UK has a long history of lead mining and iron-ore extraction, and more recent workings for fluorspar. Current mineral specimen operations at St.Peters, Rogerley and Greenlaws in Weardale,plus two large-scale quarrying operations which periodically hit mineralised ground, are the only present-day activities. Some of the finest fluorspar specimens in the world have come from Weardale. In the late 1980’s, on the 325 level at Cambokeels a zinc-rich flat was discovered. Frazer`s Hush, the last commercially worked mine,closed in 1999. The ore-field is zoned laterally with the central area primarily fluorite and the outer fringes containing barite. Crystallised galena, calcite, siderite, quartz and pyrite also occur with amounts of sphalerite increasing towards the west of the ore-field. Specimens from classic Weardale locations are becoming increasingly difficult to find due to the end of commercial mining. Yorkshire mining activity in the Yorkshire Dales and North Yorks Moors has produced Mineral Specimens including fluorite and barite and secondary minerals including ktenasite, gearksutite and otavite. The Brigantes who occupied the Pennines at the time of the Roman invasion worked the vein outcrops for lead. Following the Pennine chain of hills southwards from Weardale and Teesdale, mining activity extends down into Yorkshire through Swaledale, Wensleydale and Wharfedale as far as the area around Skipton and Pateley Bridge.The deposits occur in Carboniferous rocks. Post Carboniferous uplifting of the area between the Stainmore Trough and the Craven basin connected with the Caledonian granite underlying Wensleydale providing the pattern of fissures facilitating the vein channels.In the east of Yorkshire large deposits of ironstone were worked in the North York Moors but being a low grade replacement deposit little of interest for collectors was ever found. A little to the north of Whitby the relatively recent exploitation of the Zechstein evaporates at Boulby mine has provided excellent specimens of borate minerals. Minerals such as calcite, barite, hemimorphite and galena are quite common throughout the Yorkshire Pennines but are usually massive or micro crystalline. Mining in Swaledale and Wensleydale has produced banded brown barite (similar to Derbyshire Oakstone),malachite, azurite,classic tapered pseudo-hexagonal witherite from Dam Rigg Mine,strontianite, fluorite,witherite, yellow smithsonite,cerussite,Aurichalcite, aragonite, hemimorphite,Otavite and Doyleite. Nodules of boracite and associated mineral up to 1 metre in diameter occur in a distinct bed just above the base of the potash deposit at Boulby Mine near the North Yorkshire coast. Some mineral specimens may be found on the beaches at Scarborough and Withernsea. In the Northern Lake District mining and quarrying for Lead and Zinc has exposed mineral specimens of mineralogical interest. The Northern Lake District has been extensively mined for lead and zinc since Elizabethan times, when German miners worked the rich copper and lead veins at the Goldscope Mine in the Newlands and Borrowdale area in the mid sixteenth century for galena. The Northern Lake District has three mining areas, The Keswick mining field, the Newlands and Borrowdale field and the Helvellyn Mining Field. In the nineteenth century, when barytes became a saleable product,the upper levels of Force Crag Mine, in the Keswick Mining Field, became productive. Force Crag Mine was last mined in the early 1990`s, when a suite of supergene minerals including acanthite, anglesite, well crystallised cerussite, langite, lautenthalite, linarite, serpierite, native silver and extremely fine pyromophite crystals were found at Force Crag Mine, which is now listed as an SSSI. Details of this discovery are documented in the UK Journal of Mines and Minerals, Issue No.18. Greenside Mine in the Helvellyn Mining Field was the largest mine in the Lake District. It was worked almost continuously for lead ore for over 200 years. The screes, dumps and spoil heaps left at the mine workings have yielded mineral specimens for collectors and mineralogists such as Sir Arthur Russell. Goldscope Mine, Brandlehow and Old Brandley Mine and other mines in the Newlands and Borrowdale field had some of the oldest mine workings in the Northern Lake District. Workings in most of the mines in this field had ceased befiore the end of the nineteenth century. Caldbeck Fells,part of the Lake District National Park, has a complex geology and minerology. Different episodes of mineralisation and subsequent oxidation processes have provided excellent specimens of copper, lead, zinc, iron and tungsten minerals with world class specimens of caledonite, campylite (var. of mimetite), hemimorphite, linarite, and plumbogummite. Many of the species were rare oxidised ores in small crystals, good specimens could be found on the old mine dumps of lead and copper mines and in opencasts and outcrops. Carrock mine`s relatively recent re-working also contributed to drawing mineral collectors and mineralogists to the area. Mineral deposits in the area are thought to have been worked at least as far back as the 12th century, although documented evidence only goes back to the mid-fifteenth century when skilled German miners arrived in the area during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I,leading to the formation of the Company of Mines Royal. Some old mining spoil heaps and tips have been more recently re-worked for barite.
Pyromorphite a-586
Aurichalcite a-024
Fluorite a-297
Cerussite a-118
Stilbite a-017
Stibnite a-145
Barite a-030
Heulandite a-081
Fluorite a-559
Anglesite a-050
Anglesite a-558
Fluorite a-288
Pyromorphite a-070
Brewsterite a-584
Aurichalcite a-503
Apophyllite a-732
Levyne a-427
Fluorite a-008
Calcite a-440
Vivianite a-539
Pyromorphite a-517
Barytocalcite a-692
Pyromorphite a-546
Calcite a-011
Harmotome a-497
Strontianite a-716
Harmotome a-164
Beryl (Var. Aquamarine) a-317
Phillipsite a-161
Analcime a-761
Fluorite a-693
Smithsonite a-646
Wavellite a-749
Pyrite a-065
Vanadinite a-457
Azurite a-763
Schorl & Topaz a-060
Smithsonite a-441
Hematite a-552
Spinel a-021
Fluorite a-766
Mimetite a-904
Garnet (hessonite) a-038
Siderite a-508
Wulfenite a-051
Barite a-703
Chalcophyllite a-096
Stilbite a-435
Barite a-107
Cerussite a-153
Garnet a-132
Epidote a-141
Levyne a-689
Vanadinite a-656
Fluorite a-294
Dolomite a-723
Brewsterite a-727
Fluorite a-626
Fluorite a-752
Fluorite a-316
Hemimorphite a-740
Sphalerite a-370
Plumbogummite a-413
Boracite a-324
Fluorite a-697
Pharmacosiderite a-210
Alstonite a-731
Heulandite a-739
Fluorite a-563
Fluorite a-198
Elbaite a-859
Boracite a-896
Aragonite a-773
Wulfenite a-767
Linarite a-986
Pyromorphite a-968
Calcite a-961
Vesuvianite a-949
Bastnesite a-973
Inesite a-801
Epidote a-999
Aragonite a-780
Bournonite a-001
Chalcocite a-932
Brookite a-980
Pyromorphite a-182
Calcite a-012
Zircon a-033
Garnet a-041
Parasymplesite a-870
Hureaulite a-265
Conichalcite a-283
Elbaite a-271
Copper a-200
Stilbite a-209
Azurite a-394
Sphalerite & Pyrite a-620
Shattuckite a-197
Roscherite a-252
Babingtonite a-176
Calcite a-259
Wulfenite a-028
Orthoclase a-106
Elbaite a-311
Beryl a-190
Beryl a-087
Pyromorphite a-099
Galena & Pyrrhotite a-127
Carrollite a-516
Heulandite-Sr a-520
Fluorite a-160
Beryl (Var. Aquamarine) a-332
Dioptase a-325
Anatase a-120
Galena a-130
Smithsonite a-163
Analcime a-349
Smithsonite a-443
Smithsonite a-379
Epidote a-389
Quartz epimorph a-538
Galena a-890
Quartz a-004
Heulandite-Sr a-414
Strontianite a-472
Pyromorphite a-514
Mottramite a-542
Barite a-658
Malachite a-357
Fluorite a-595
Phosphohedyphane a-657
Epidote a-640
Scheelite a-601
Quartz a-618
Elbaite a-255
Pyromorphite a-492
Azurite a-211
Pseudomalachite a-481
Apatite a-055
Cerussite a-636
Fluorite a-991
Fluorite a-597
Fluorite a-364
Witherite a-682
Alstonite a-841
Quartz a-304
Fluorite a-529
Brookite a-375
List all items
February 2009
March 2009
Site updated - Saturday 4th of July 2009
Fluorite
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Fluorite & Hemimorphite
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