Hematite

This is a fabulous kidney ore Hematite from Florence mine in West Cumbria, England, forming a good sized cabinet specimen like nothing I have ever before encountered.  Believe-you-me, I’ve handled a lot of west Cumbrian Hematites and have many in my own collection, yet this example is embedded in what looks like a quite finely brecciated matrix of Calcite cemented by Hematite.  To imagine the texture of this matrix, picture a quite finely crystallised pink granite rather than a sedimentary-metasomatic environment!   The central mass of highly lustrous botryoidal Hematite measures roughly 6.5 x 4.5 x 4 cm deep and set in such matrix appears very unusual to anyone familiar with specimens from this region!