Love and ore
Photograph A: cuprite with green malachite.
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Sample: Granular cuprite with green malachite
Operation: Cliffe Hill Quarry Product: Granite aggregate. We have very few mad scientists in our ores research team (promise) but what we do have is an entire team who are madly passionate about their science – specifically, economic geology. As with all great loves, we seize every opportunity to share it with the world – minus the selfies.
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Fossil Festival: A great Lyme
up
Every year, during the first weekend in May, Museum mineralogists, geologists, meteoricists, botanists and entomologists (still with me?) make their way to the Lyme Regis Fossil Festival. This festival encourages people to engage with the natural world – learning about everything from fossils to the precious materials we use in everyday life. Our scientists take along samples from our treasured collections to share their knowledge and experience with others.
Let’s talk ores
The sample in photograph A beautifully displays two copper bearing minerals: cuprite (Cu2O) which is the purple coloured mineral and malachite [Cu2(CO3)(OH)2] which is the green mineral. However, between you and me, this sample technically shouldn’t be in the ore collection. For a deposit to be termed an ‘ore’ deposit, there has to be a natural concentration of valuable minerals large enough to be worth extracting. So, although the occurrence of copper bearing minerals at New Cliffe Quarry is well documented, copper is not mined at this locality as its occurrence was localised and ultimately uneconomic.
However…
…there’s no such thing as a useless specimen
Despite its lack of ore-someness, Professor Richard Herrington uses this sample at the Festival to explain how and why geologists explore for copper around the world. Copper is a vital component in the construction, manufacturing and transport industries, so it takes a unique specimen to get that message across!
Visit window fourteen and window seventeen to see what else the Museum’s ore collection has been involved in.
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Every year, during the first weekend in May, Museum mineralogists, geologists, meteoricists, botanists and entomologists (still with me?) make their way to the Lyme Regis Fossil Festival. This festival encourages people to engage with the natural world – learning about everything from fossils to the precious materials we use in everyday life. Our scientists take along samples from our treasured collections to share their knowledge and experience with others.
Let’s talk ores
The sample in photograph A beautifully displays two copper bearing minerals: cuprite (Cu2O) which is the purple coloured mineral and malachite [Cu2(CO3)(OH)2] which is the green mineral. However, between you and me, this sample technically shouldn’t be in the ore collection. For a deposit to be termed an ‘ore’ deposit, there has to be a natural concentration of valuable minerals large enough to be worth extracting. So, although the occurrence of copper bearing minerals at New Cliffe Quarry is well documented, copper is not mined at this locality as its occurrence was localised and ultimately uneconomic.
However…
…there’s no such thing as a useless specimen
Despite its lack of ore-someness, Professor Richard Herrington uses this sample at the Festival to explain how and why geologists explore for copper around the world. Copper is a vital component in the construction, manufacturing and transport industries, so it takes a unique specimen to get that message across!
Visit window fourteen and window seventeen to see what else the Museum’s ore collection has been involved in.
< Back to calendar