dert cave

Specimen Qualities

• ID: #33
• Species: Tourmaline
• Weight: Unknown
• Locality: Unkown
• Age: Unknown

General Qualities

• Class: Silicate
• Hardness: 7.0-7.5
• Habit: Parallel and elongated
• Cleavage: None
• Fracture: Conchoidal
• Colour: Commonly black but can range to many colours
• Streak: White
• Lustre: Vitreous
• Specific Gravity: 3.06
• Other: N/A

Notes

Tourmaline was sometimes called the "Ceylonese Magnet" due to its ability to attract and repel hot ashes due to its pyroelectric properties.

Specimen Qualities

• ID: #32
• Species: Smoky Quartz
• Weight: Unknown
• Locality: Unkown
• Age: Unknown

General Qualities

• Class: Silicate
• Hardness: 7
• Habit: 6-sided prism
• Cleavage: None
• Fracture: Conchoidal
• Colour: Brown to grey, opaque
• Streak: White
• Lustre: Vitreous
• Specific Gravity: 2.65
• Other: Piezoelectric

Notes

Colour is produced when radiation emitted from the surrounding rock activates colour centres around aluminium impurities within the quartz. The shaded colour allowed flat panes of smoky quartz to be used as sunglasses in 12th century China.

Specimen Qualities

• ID: #31
• Species: Satin Spar
• Weight: Unknown
• Locality: Unkown
• Age: Unknown

General Qualities

• Class: Sulphate
• Hardness: 2
• Habit: No visible
• Cleavage: [010] Perfect, [100] Distinct, [011] Distinct
• Fracture: Fibrous
• Colour: Brown green, brownish yellow, greenish, gray green, gray white
• Streak: White
• Lustre: Pearly
• Specific Gravity: 2.9
• Other: Fluorescent

Notes

Some of the largest crystals ever found are of selenite, with the largest specimen being found in the Naica Mine's Cave of the Crystals which is 12 metres long and weighs 12 tonnes.

Specimen Qualities

• ID: #30
• Species: Rose Quartz
• Weight: Unknown
• Locality: Unkown
• Age: Unknown

General Qualities

• Class: Silicate
• Hardness: 7
• Habit: 6-sided prism
• Cleavage: None
• Fracture: Conchoidal
• Colour: Colourless, pink, orange, white, green, yellow, blue, purple, dark brown, or black
• Streak: White
• Lustre: Vitreous
• Specific Gravity: 2.65
• Other: Pink colour arises due to trace amounts of titanium, iron, or manganese in the mineral structure.

Specimen Qualities

• ID: #29
• Species: Quartz
• Weight: Unknown
• Locality: Unkown
• Age: Unknown

General Qualities

• Class: Silicate
• Hardness: 7
• Habit: 6-sided prism
• Cleavage: None
• Fracture: Conchoidal
• Colour: Colourless, pink, orange, white, green, yellow, blue, purple, dark brown, or black
• Streak: White
• Lustre: Vitreous
• Specific Gravity: 2.65
• Other: Piezoelectric

Notes

The second most abundant mineral in Earth's continental crust (behind feldspar), likely due to it being the most basic of the silicates with a formula of SiO₄ and being a framework of silicate tetrahedra.

Specimen Qualities

• ID: #28
• Species: Quartz
• Weight: Unknown
• Locality: Unkown
• Age: Unknown

General Qualities

• Class: Silicate
• Hardness: 7
• Habit: 6-sided prism
• Cleavage: None
• Fracture: Conchoidal
• Colour: Colourless, pink, orange, white, green, yellow, blue, purple, dark brown, or black
• Streak: White
• Lustre: Vitreous
• Specific Gravity: 2.65
• Other: Piezoelectric

Notes

Quartz is the defining mineral for 7 on the Mohs scale of hardness, the qualitative scratch system for determining material hardness.

Specimen Qualities

• ID: #27
• Species: Pyrite
• Weight: Unknown
• Locality: Unkown
• Age: Unknown

General Qualities

• Class: Sulphide
• Hardness: 6-6.5
• Habit: Cubic
• Cleavage: N/A
• Fracture: Conchoidal
• Colour: Brassy-yellow
• Streak: Greenish-black
• Lustre: Metallic
• Specific Gravity: 5
• Other: Paramagnetic

Specimen Qualities

• ID: #26
• Species: Orange Calcite
• Weight: Unknown
• Locality: Unkown
• Age: Unknown

General Qualities

• Class: Carbonate
• Hardness: 3
• Habit: Rhombohedral
• Cleavage: 2 not at 90°
• Fracture: Conchoidal
• Colour: Typically colourless or creamy white, may have shades of brownish colours
• Streak: White
• Lustre: Vitreous
• Specific Gravity: 2.71
• Other: N/A

Notes

Probably one of the more delicious looking minerals I own, on account of it looking like a huge chunk of orange.

Specimen Qualities

• ID: #25
• Species: Muscovite
• Weight: Unknown
• Locality: Unkown
• Age: Unknown

General Qualities

• Class: Silicate
• Hardness: 2-2.5
• Habit: Massive to platy
• Cleavage: Perfect on the {001}
• Fracture: Micaceous
• Colour: White, grey, silvery
• Streak: White
• Lustre: Vitreous
• Specific Gravity: 2.76
• Other: N/A

Notes

This sample is shockingly reflective and required me to knock the shutter speed down to a fraction of a second for the image to not be completely overexposed, compared to around 2-3 seconds for every other specimen.

Specimen Qualities

• ID: #24
• Species: Labradorite
• Weight: Unknown
• Locality: Unkown
• Age: Unknown

General Qualities

• Class: Silicate
• Hardness: 6-6.5
• Habit: Thin and tabular
• Cleavage: Perfect on {001}, less perfect on {010}, intersecting at near 90°; distinct on {110}
• Fracture: Uneven to conchoidal
• Colour: Gray, gray-white, brown, greenish, pale green, blue, orange, pink, yellow, colourless
• Streak: White
• Lustre: Vitreous
• Specific Gravity: 2.68
• Other: Iridescent

Notes

The specific name for the iridescence exhibited by labradorite is quite appropriately called labradorescence!

Specimen Qualities

• ID: #23
• Species: Fluorite
• Weight: Unknown
• Locality: Unkown
• Age: Unknown

General Qualities

• Class: Halide
• Hardness: 4
• Habit: Varies
• Cleavage: Octahedral
• Fracture: Subconchoidal to uneven
• Colour: Colourless, although samples are often deeply colored owing to impurities; Purple, lilac, golden-yellow, green, blue, pink, champagne, brown.
• Streak: White
• Lustre: Vitreous
• Specific Gravity: 3.175
• Other: May be fluorescent

Notes

There is something about this sample that makes it incapable to photograph well, in every setup or with any lens I have tried it has been impossible to get a sharp image of it. I can only assume it is cursed.

Specimen Qualities

• ID: #22
• Species: Plagioclase
• Weight: Unknown
• Locality: Unkown
• Age: Unknown

General Qualities

• Class: Silicate
• Hardness: 6-6.5
• Habit: Varies
• Cleavage: 2 not at 90°
• Fracture: Uneven to conchoidal
• Colour: White, grey, or bluish white
• Streak: White
• Lustre: Vitreous
• Specific Gravity: 2.69
• Other: Forms a solid solution series from albite to anorthite

Notes

Analysis of thermal emission spectra from the surface of Mars suggests that plagioclase is the most abundant mineral in the crust of Mars.

Specimen Qualities

• ID: #21
• Species: Agate Slice (Dyed)
• Weight: Unknown
• Locality: Unkown
• Age: Unknown

General Qualities

• Class: Silicate
• Hardness: 6.5-7
• Habit: Cryptocrystalline
• Cleavage: None
• Fracture: Conchoidal
• Colour: Often multicoloured; commonly colourless, pale blue to black, red to orange, yellow, white, brown, pink, purple; rarely green
• Streak: White
• Lustre: Waxy
• Specific Gravity: 2.60
• Other: N/A

Notes

Unsure where I acquired this considering it isn't from the "crap I bought when I was 7" collection, that features other painfully obvious dyed rocks.

In terms of actual agate geology, formation of the bands is poorly understood. It can't be directly observed nor have agates been successfully lab-grown.

Specimen Qualities

• ID: #20
• Species: Agate Slice (Dyed)
• Weight: Unknown
• Locality: Unkown
• Age: Unknown

General Qualities

• Class: Silicate
• Hardness: 6.5-7
• Habit: Cryptocrystalline
• Cleavage: None
• Fracture: Conchoidal
• Colour: Often multicoloured; commonly colourless, pale blue to black, red to orange, yellow, white, brown, pink, purple; rarely green
• Streak: White
• Lustre: Waxy
• Specific Gravity: 2.60
• Other: N/A

Notes

A specimen from the "crap I bought when I was 7" collection, thus very obviously dyed to give it such a strong pink colouring.

Specimen Qualities

• ID: #19
• Species: Citrine
• Weight: Unknown
• Locality: Unkown
• Age: Unknown

General Qualities

• Class: Silicate
• Hardness: 7
• Habit: Varies
• Cleavage: None
• Fracture: Conchoidal
• Colour: Pale yellow, with orange, green, or smoky hues
• Streak: White
• Lustre: Vitreous
• Specific Gravity: 2.65
• Other: N/A

Specimen Qualities

• ID: #18
• Species: Calcite
• Weight: Unknown
• Locality: Unkown
• Age: Unknown

General Qualities

• Class: Carbonate
• Hardness: 3
• Habit: Rhombohedral
• Cleavage: 2 not at 90°
• Fracture: Conchoidal
• Colour: Typically colourless or creamy white, may have shades of brownish colours
• Streak: White
• Lustre: Vitreous
• Specific Gravity: 2.71
• Other: N/A

Notes

Calcite is the defining mineral for 3 on the Mohs scale of hardness, the qualitative scratch system for determining material hardness.

Specimen Qualities

• ID: #17
• Species: Blue Calcite
• Weight: Unknown
• Locality: Unkown
• Age: Unknown

General Qualities

• Class: Carbonate
• Hardness: 3
• Habit: Rhombohedral
• Cleavage: 2 not at 90°
• Fracture: Conchoidal
• Colour: Typically colourless or creamy white, may have shades of brownish colours
• Streak: White
• Lustre: Vitreous
• Specific Gravity: 2.71
• Other: N/A

Specimen Qualities

• ID: #16
• Species: Bismuth
• Weight: Unknown
• Locality: Unkown
• Age: Unknown

General Qualities

• Class: N/A
• Hardness: 2.25
• Habit: N/A
• Cleavage: N/A
• Fracture: N/A
• Colour: Silvery-white but vividuly iridescent after heat treatment
• Streak: N/A
• Lustre: N/A
• Specific Gravity: N/A
• Other: N/A

Notes

Obviously not a mineral, but considering a brick is also on this page I think it's reasonable to include. Plus, it looks awesome.

Specimen Qualities

• ID: #15
• Species: Biotite
• Weight: Unknown
• Locality: Unkown
• Age: Unknown

General Qualities

• Class: Silicate
• Hardness: 2.5-3.0
• Habit: Massive to platy
• Cleavage: Perfect on the {001}
• Fracture: Micaceous
• Colour: Dark brown, greenish-brown, blackish-brown, yellow
• Streak: White
• Lustre: Vitreous to pearly
• Specific Gravity: 2.7
• Other: N/A

Notes

If you're ever considering to be a geology teacher within a carpeted classroom, I hope you enjoy spending half of your life picking up biotite flakes from the carpet whenever your students start peeling layers like there's no tomorrow during the introductory mineralogy lesson.

Specimen Qualities

• ID: #14
• Species: "Citrine" (Baked Amethyst)
• Weight: Unknown
• Locality: Unkown
• Age: Unknown

General Qualities

• Class: Silicate
• Hardness: 7
• Habit: Prismatic
• Cleavage: N/A
• Fracture: Conchoidal
• Colour: Violet
• Streak: White
• Lustre: Vitreous
• Specific Gravity: 2.65
• Other: Colour arises from heat treatment

Notes

Due to the rarity of natural citrine, most "citrine" you'll ever see for sale is actually heat-treated (baked) amethyst. You can typically tell the difference as heat-treated amethyst has a brown tint to the yellow colour or exhibits a hexagonal crystal habit (impossible for natural citrine to do).

Specimen Qualities

• ID: #13
• Species: Amethyst
• Weight: Unknown
• Locality: Unkown
• Age: Unknown

General Qualities

• Class: Silicate
• Hardness: 7
• Habit: Prismatic
• Cleavage: N/A
• Fracture: Conchoidal
• Colour: Violet
• Streak: White
• Lustre: Vitreous
• Specific Gravity: 2.65
• Other: Piezoelectric

Notes

Extremely weak in colour that is barely perceptible in the photo

Specimen Qualities

• ID: #12
• Species: Agate
• Weight: Unknown
• Locality: Unkown
• Age: Unknown

General Qualities

• Class: Silicate
• Hardness: 6.5-7
• Habit: Cryptocrystalline
• Cleavage: None
• Fracture: Conchoidal
• Colour: Often multicoloured; commonly colourless, pale blue to black, red to orange, yellow, white, brown, pink, purple; rarely green
• Streak: White
• Lustre: Waxy
• Specific Gravity: 2.60
• Other: N/A

Specimen Qualities

• ID: #11
• Species: Azurite
• Weight: Unknown
• Locality: Canary Islands
• Age: Unknown

General Qualities

• Class: Carbonate
• Hardness: 3.504
• Habit: Varies
• Cleavage: Perfect on {011}, fair on {100}, poor on {110}
• Fracture: Conchoidal
• Colour: Deep-Blue
• Streak: Light-Bluek
• Lustre: Vitreous
• Specific Gravity: 3.78
• Other: N/A

Notes

Azurite is produced by the oxidation of copper ore deposits, however because of its instability in open-air it is often pseudomorphologically replaced (crystal dimensionss maintained, but mineral replaced) by very green malachite.

I found, probably, the most pathetic grain of azurite on fieldwork one time, significantly smaller than a popcorn kernel, so this specimen is a marginal improvement.

Specimen Qualities

• ID: #1
• Species: Amethyst
• Weight: Unknown
• Locality: Unknown
• Age: Unknown

General Qualities

• Class: Silicate
• Hardness: 7
• Habit: Prismatic
• Cleavage: N/A
• Fracture: Conchoidal
• Colour: Violet
• Streak: White
• Lustre: Vitreous
• Specific Gravity: 2.65
• Other: Piezoelectric

Notes

Amethyst is easily one of the most well-known minerals and probably the one you're most likely to have even if you're not a rock collector.

Technically, amethyst isn't a mineral in its own right as it is actually a variety of quartz. The violet colour is the result iron impurities in the lattice. Therefore, amethyst maintains many qualities of quartz, it's chemical resilience and hardness, that make it popular as a gemstone for jewellery.

Specimen Qualities

• ID: #3
• Species: Pyrite
• Weight: Unknown
• Locality: Unknown
• Age: Unknown

General Qualities

• Class: Sulphide
• Hardness: 6-6.5
• Habit: Cubic
• Cleavage: N/A
• Fracture: Conchoidal
• Colour: Brassy-yellow
• Streak: Greenish-black
• Lustre: Metallic
• Specific Gravity: 5
• Other: Paramagnetic

Notes

"Fool's gold" is the infamous alternate name of pyrite, plaguing hopeful prospectors for centuries.

Pyrite is captivating because it's one of the few minerals that can form truly perfect cubic crystals, unfortunately my sample is much more of an anhedral mass of many crystals.

Specimen Qualities

• ID: #70
• Species: Unknown
• Weight: Unknown
• Locality: Unknown
• Age: Unknown

General Qualities

• Type: Sedimentary(?)
• Composition: Unknown
• Other: Unknown

Specimen Qualities

• ID: #69
• Species: Unknown
• Weight: Unknown
• Locality: Unknown
• Age: Unknown

General Qualities

• Type: Sedimentary(?)
• Composition: Unknown
• Other: Unknown

Notes

I suspect this is actually some anthropogenic material, but I am intrigued by whatever formed the hole.

Specimen Qualities

• ID: #68
• Species: Slate
• Weight: Unknown
• Locality: Bethesda, Gwyned, Wales
• Age: Cambrian

General Qualities

• Type: Metamorphic
• Composition: Primarily quartz and muscovite
• Metamorphism: Regional
• Other: Low-grade

Notes

The property of being able to split slates into thin sheets is known as "fissility" and is of course why it finds common use as a roofing tile.

Specimen Qualities

• ID: #67
• Species: Unknown
• Weight: Unknown
• Locality: Unknown
• Age: Unknown

General Qualities

• Type: Sedimentary
• Composition: Veins made of quartz
• Other: N/A

Specimen Qualities

• ID: #66
• Species: Unknown
• Weight: Unknown
• Locality: Unknown
• Age: Unknown

General Qualities

• Type: Sedimentary
• Composition: Veins made of quartz
• Other: N/A

Specimen Qualities

• ID: #65
• Species: Unknown
• Weight: Unknown
• Locality: Unknown
• Age: Unknown

General Qualities

• Type: Igneous
• Composition: Veins made of quartz, host rock likely mafic
• Depth: Unknown
• Texture: Unknown
• Other: N/A

Specimen Qualities

• ID: #64
• Species: Unknown
• Weight: Unknown
• Locality: Unknown
• Age: Unknown

General Qualities

• Type: Sedimentary(?)
• Composition: Veins made of quartz
• Other: N/A

Specimen Qualities

• ID: #63
• Species: Unknown
• Weight: Unknown
• Locality: Nea Kameni, Greece
• Age: Unknown

General Qualities

• Type: Igneous
• Composition: Yellow colouring potentially sulphur
• Depth: Extrusive
• Texture: Fine-grained
• Other: N/A

Specimen Qualities

• ID: #62
• Species: Unknown
• Weight: Unknown
• Locality: Nea Kameni, Greece
• Age: Unknown

General Qualities

• Type: Igneous
• Composition: Yellow colouring potentially sulphur
• Depth: Extrusive
• Texture: Fine-grained
• Other: N/A

Specimen Qualities

• ID: #61
• Species: Pumice
• Weight: Unknown
• Locality: Lipari Islands, Italy
• Age: Recent

General Qualities

• Type: Igneous
• Composition: Varies
• Depth: Extrusive
• Texture: Glassy
• Other: Extremely vesicular

Notes

An excellent (and safe) prank to pull on people is throwing pumice at them, scares the hell out of them until they realise how light it is. Pumice has a density lower than water. In fact, submarine or coastal volcanic eruptions have the potential to form massive floating rafts of pumice on the water.

Specimen Qualities

• ID: #60
• Species: Obsidian
• Weight: Unknown
• Locality: Anatolia, Turkey
• Age: Pleistocene

General Qualities

• Type: Igneous
• Composition: Felsic
• Depth: Extrusive
• Texture: Glassy
• Other: N/A

Notes

Obsidian has famously had a history of use as a cutting tool. It potentially has modern potential for surgical scalpels as a much finer edge can be cut compared to contemporary materials.

Specimen Qualities

• ID: #59
• Species: Obsidian
• Weight: Unknown
• Locality: Unknown
• Age: Unknown

General Qualities

• Type: Igneous
• Composition: Felsic
• Depth: Extrusive
• Texture: Glassy
• Other: N/A

Notes

Technically, obsidian shouldn't be in the mineral section of this page considering it doesn't fit all the requirements to be a mineral. This is because obsidian is glassy instead of crystalline, a key requirement of minerals.

Specimen Qualities

• ID: #58
• Species: Mudstone
• Weight: Unknown
• Locality: Yorkshire, UK
• Age: Jurassic

General Qualities

• Type: Sedimentary
• Composition: Mostly silicate grains
• Other: N/A

Specimen Qualities

• ID: #57
• Species: Mudstone
• Weight: Unknown
• Locality: St David's Head, Pembrokeshire, Wales
• Age: Ordovician (Arenigian)

General Qualities

• Type: Sedimentary
• Composition: Mostly silicate grains
• Other: N/A

Specimen Qualities

• ID: #56
• Species: Mica Schist
• Weight: Unknown
• Locality: Loch Clunie, Scotland
• Age: Pre-Cambrian

General Qualities

• Type: Metamorphic
• Composition: Primarily quartz and mica
• Metamorphism: Regional
• Other: Medium-grade

Notes

Certain specimens of schist are mesmerisingly shiny, like thousands of glitter grains were welded together.

Specimen Qualities

• ID: #55
• Species: Marble
• Weight: Unknown
• Locality: Isle of Skye, Scotland
• Age: Tertiary

General Qualities

• Type: Metamorphic
• Composition: Calcite
• Metamorphism: Regional or Contact
• Other: High hardness and resistance

Notes

If you're taking a geology exam and you're unsure if the sample you were given is of marble or some other white rock all you have to do is use your little dilute bottle of hydrochloric acid (from the provided mineralogy kit that also includes a copper penny). Because of the calcite in marble, it will effervesce upon contact with the acid.

If it doesn't work and you're stuck on identifying the rock, simply drink the acid.

Specimen Qualities

• ID: #54
• Species: Unknown
• Weight: Unknown
• Locality: Unknown
• Age: Unknown

General Qualities

• Type: Igneous
• Composition: Veins composed of quartz
• Depth: Unknown
• Texture: Unknown
• Other: N/A

Specimen Qualities

• ID: #53
• Species: Gneiss
• Weight: Unknown
• Locality: Evje, Norway
• Age: Pre-Cambrian

General Qualities

• Type: Regional Metamorphic
• Composition: Dark layers rich in biotite, light layers rich in quartz and feldspars
• Other: High grade

Notes

The alternating dark and light coloured bands (poorly visible in this sample) is known as gneissose banding, a type of high grade metamorphic foliation.

Some of the oldest rocks in the world are gneisses, with the Acasta Gneiss of Canada being one of the oldest of the oldest.

Specimen Qualities

• ID: #52
• Species: Gabbro
• Weight: Unknown
• Locality: Unknown
• Age: Unknown

General Qualities

• Type: Igneous
• Composition: Mafic
• Depth: Intrusive
• Texture: Coarse-grained
• Other: N/A

Specimen Qualities

• ID: #51
• Species: Quartz Geode (Dyed and Painted)
• Weight: Unknown
• Locality: Unknown
• Age: Unknown

General Qualities

• Type: Sedimentary
• Composition: Limestone(?) infilled with Quartz
• Other: In two roughly equal halves

Notes

By far the funniest rock I've ever been given, so ridiculously fake and piss-yellow I can't help but adore it. I give my life to the Piss Geode. All hail the Piss Geode.

Specimen Qualities

• ID: #50
• Species: Quartz Geode
• Weight: Unknown
• Locality: Unknown
• Age: Unknown

General Qualities

• Type: Sedimentary
• Composition: Limestone(?) infilled with Quartz
• Other: N/A

Notes

My favourite from the "crap I bought when I was 7" collection, completely wrong tone to ever be passed off as amethyst and the drops of dye used on it are obviously visible.

Specimen Qualities

• ID: #49
• Species: Crinoidal Limestone
• Weight: Unknown
• Locality: Derbyshire
• Age: Carboniferous

General Qualities

• Type: Sedimentary
• Composition: Calcite
• Other: Contains crinoid fossils

Specimen Qualities

• ID: #48
• Species: Crinoidal Limestone
• Weight: Unknown
• Locality: Clitheroe
• Age: Carboniferous

General Qualities

• Type: Sedimentary
• Composition: Calcite
• Other: Contains crinoid fossils

Notes

A nice part about this locality is that it smells pretty nice when the pie factory nearby is active.

Specimen Qualities

• ID: #47
• Species: Conglomerate
• Weight: Unknown
• Locality: Pembrokeshire
• Age: Unknown

General Qualities

• Type: Sedimentary
• Composition: Gravels surrounded by finer sediments
• Other: N/A

Specimen Qualities

• ID: #46
• Species: Conglomerate
• Weight: Unknown
• Locality: Farrington, UK
• Age: Cretaceous

General Qualities

• Type: Sedimentary
• Composition: Gravels surrounded by finer sediments
• Other: N/A

Specimen Qualities

• ID: #45
• Species: Chalk
• Weight: Unknown
• Locality: Yorkshire, UK
• Age: Cretaceous

General Qualities

• Type: Sedimentary
• Composition: Calcite
• Other: Formed of coccolithophore fossils

Notes

The Cretaceous geological era actually derives its name from chalk (literally chalk-bearing) due to how common chalk beds are during that period.

Specimen Qualities

• ID: #44
• Species: Brick
• Weight: Unknown
• Locality: Rivington, UK
• Age: Recent

General Qualities

• Type: Brick
• Composition: Clay
• Other: It's a brick

Notes

What can I say, it's a brick. However it's a pretty cool looking brick.

Specimen Qualities

• ID: #43
• Species: Breccia
• Weight: Unknown
• Locality: Ilam, Staffordshire, UK
• Age: Pleistocene

General Qualities

• Type: Sedimentary
• Composition: Large angular clasts cemented together by finer grains
• Other: N/A

Notes

Conglomerate's evil twin.

Specimen Qualities

• ID: #42
• Species: Basalt
• Weight: Unknown
• Locality: Nea Kameni, Greece
• Age: Unknown

General Qualities

• Type: Igneous
• Composition: Mafic
• Depth: Extrusive
• Texture: Fine-grained with vesicles
• Other: Major component of ocean crust, which is almost entirely volcanic in origin

Specimen Qualities

• ID: #41
• Species: Basalt
• Weight: Unknown
• Locality: Northern Ireland
• Age: Tertiary

General Qualities

• Type: Igneous
• Composition: Mafic
• Depth: Extrusive
• Texture: Fine-grained with vesicles
• Other: Major component of ocean crust, which is almost entirely volcanic in origin

Specimen Qualities

• ID: #40
• Species: Basalt
• Weight: Unknown
• Locality: Unknown
• Age: Unknown

General Qualities

• Type: Igneous
• Composition: Mafic
• Depth: Extrusive
• Texture: Fine-grained with vesicles
• Other: Major component of ocean crust, which is almost entirely volcanic in origin

Specimen Qualities

• ID: #10
• Species: Quartz Geode
• Weight: Unknown
• Locality: Canary Islands
• Age: Unknown

General Qualities

• Type: Sedimentary
• Composition: Limestone(?) infilled with Quartz
• Other: In two unequal halves

Notes

Geodes form when minerals, in this case quartz, precipitate out of a solution that enters or passes through a hollow rock or cavity. I'm not entirely certain of what the original rock in this sample is, but who cares we're here to look at it's innards.

An incredibly funny specimen I was given once is another geode, but the rock was cheaply painted black and the crystals dyed a comically piss-yellow neon.

Specimen Qualities

• ID: #2
• Species: Quartz Monzonite
• Weight: Unknown
• Locality: Shap Fell, Cumbria, UK
• Age: Devonian

General Qualities

• Type: Igneous
• Composition: Felsic
• Depth: Intrusive
• Texture: Porphyritic crystalline
• Other: N/A

Notes

I originally mistook this specimen for a pink granite, but the identification it came with describes it as a monzonite. It turns out it's a very similar rock in terms of formation, texture and composition that has a lower proportion of quartz. Granite has 20% quartz or more, a monzonite only has 5-20%.

Specimen Qualities

• ID: #4
• Species: Quartz Monzonite
• Weight: Unknown
• Locality: Hebei, China
• Age: Unknown

General Qualities

• Type: Igneous
• Composition: Ultramafic
• Depth: Mantle
• Texture: Coarse-grained
• Other: Greer

Notes

Peridotite dominates the composition of the upper regions of Earth's mantle and is thus directly inaccessible to us. So, the reason samples of it are even obtainable is because peridotite is often brought up to the surface as an inclusion in basalt lavas, as partial melting of the mantle results in a mafic magma. The black at the top of the sample (not the small crystals) is basalt.

Specimen Qualities

• ID: #6
• Species: Anthracite Coal
• Weight: Unknown
• Locality: South Wales
• Age: Carboniferous

General Qualities

• Type: Sedimentary
• Composition: 86-97% Carbon
• Other: The purest form of coal and thus highest density of energy

Notes

Coal is formed from low-grade metamorphism (heat and pressure acting on a rock) of organic matter, the greater the degree of metamorphism the higher the "rank" of coal. The progression goes from peat to lignite to bituminous to anthracite.

Predominantly, coal is found in Carboniferous beds which is where the name is derived from (coal-bearing).

Specimen Qualities

• ID: #7
• Species: Basalt
• Weight: Unknown
• Locality: Nea Kameni, Greece
• Age: Unknown

General Qualities

• Type: Igneous
• Composition: Mafic
• Depth: Extrusive
• Texture: Fine-grained with vesicles
• Other: Major component of ocean crust, which is almost entirely volcanic in origin

Notes

Basalt is an extremely common volcanic rock with a low viscosity. This low visicosity allows for the formation of flood basalts which can form large igneous provinces such as the Deccan Traps of India.

I highlight this quality of basalts because the formation of LIPs is correlated with mass-extinction events throughout Earth's history. In particular I mentioned the Deccan Traps as it formed 66 million years ago, the same time as the end-Cretaceous extinction that is famous for wiping out non-avian dinosaurs. A meteorite impact (the Chixculub Impact) is popularly seen as the cause, however in reality it was likely a combination of the two.

Specimen Qualities

• ID: #8
• Species: Desert Sandstone
• Weight: Unknown
• Locality: Penrith, Cumbria
• Age: Permian

General Qualities

• Type: Sedimentary
• Composition: Quartz with hematite cement
• Texture: Very well sorted and rounded clasts
• Other: Horribly prone to leaving grains everywhere

Notes

Desert sandstone is the gift that keeps on giving, because if you don't secure it in some kind of container it will scatter grains of sand in every crevice nearby like there's no tomorrow.

Regardless, sandstones form from the cementation of sediments eroded out of an older parent rock, this process is the reason sands are dominated by quartz and feldspar. The composition of those two minerals make them the most resistant to weathering, while their siblings are essentially completely worn away.

Specimen Qualities

• ID: #39
• Species: Spinosaurus Aegyptiacus
• Weight: Unknown
• Length: Unknown
• Width: Unknown
• Locality: Erfoud, Morocco
• Age: Late Jurassic

General Qualities

• Phylum: Chordata
• Clade: Dinosauria
• Temporal Range: Late Cretaceous
• Other: N/A

Notes

He was a semi-aquatic, egg-laying reptile of action!

Specimen Qualities

• ID: #38
• Species: Nautiloid
• Weight: Unknown
• Length: Unknown
• Width: Unknown
• Locality: Unknown
• Age: Unknown

General Qualities

• Phylum: Mollusca
• Class: Cephalopoda
• Temporal Range: Cambrian-Recent
• Other: N/A

Notes

These guys have been around for 495 million years now, they've seen everything; Trilobites, the Great Ordovician Biodiversity Event, the P-T extinction, Pangaea, Pangaea's breakup, the Chicxulub Impact, the Holocene, 9/11, the iPhone.

Specimen Qualities

• ID: #37
• Species: Ammonoid
• Weight: Unknown
• Circumference: Unknown
• Locality: Unknown
• Age: Unknown

General Qualities

• Phylum: Mollusca
• Class: Cephalopoda
• Temporal Range: Devonian-Cretaceous
• Other: More closely relates to squids than modern nautiloids

Notes

I won this in a university meme contest.

Specimen Qualities

• ID: #36
• Species: Ammonoid
• Weight: Unknown
• Length: 6.5cm
• Width: 4.5cm
• Locality: Unknown
• Age: Unknown

General Qualities

• Phylum: Mollusca
• Class: Cephalopoda
• Temporal Range: Devonian-Cretaceous
• Other: More closely relates to squids than modern nautiloids

Notes

Later ammonoids began to exhibit "unrolled" morphologies, which resulted in some specimens living their entire life staring at their backside.

Specimen Qualities

• ID: #5
• Species: Flexicalymene Trilobite
• Weight: Unknown
• Length: 6.5cm
• Width: 4.5cm
• Locality: Erfoud, Morocco
• Age: Ordovician

General Qualities

• Phylum: Arthropod
• Class: Trilobita
• Temporal Range: Mid-Ordovician - Mid-Silurian
• Other: Commonly found enrolled

Notes

Trilobites are probably my favourite animal and will be intensely familiar to anyone who's had a palaeontology lesson.

Specimen Qualities

• ID: #9
• Species: Ammonoid
• Weight: Unknown
• Circumference: 15.7cm
• Locality: Unknown
• Age: Unknown

General Qualities

• Phylum: Mollusca
• Class: Cephalopoda
• Temporal Range: Devonian-Cretaceous
• Other: More closely relates to squids than modern nautiloids

Notes

I'd argue ammonoids constitute the most "iconic" marine fossils, likely owing to their spiral morphology and common nature. Although they are incredibly important palaeontologically, serving as excellent index fossils or fossils characteristic of a specific geologic period that therefore help to easily identify the age of a bed.

Specimen Qualities

• ID: #35

Notes

If you ever find yourself enticed by the offer of one kilogram of biotite mica for the low low price of five Great British pounds please consider the following questions; how much biotite actually is that, what use do I have for one kilogram of biotite and where do I keep one kilogram of biotite. I considered absolutely none of these questions when making my purchase.

The mica jar is one of my most prized possessions, but this jar doesn't even contain all of it, most of it remains in the original bag.

Specimen Qualities

• ID: #34

Notes

This jar contains all the smaller specimens and tumblestones from my collection. It contains gifts from an advent calendar, random fossils and stained glass.