Parton Haematite var. Kidney Ore

At the weekend we studied the weather forecast carefully, before going for a beach walk at Parton. While I sketched- click here- Tom went down the beach in search of fossils from the Coal Measures, that were dumped in the bay as spoil (for a past fossil hunting trip click here). There were numerous fossils including Calamites and plenty of partial fish remains (mostly broken scales). However, they were not the 'prize find' of the day- that went to a large piece of iron ore found on the foreshore at Tanyard Bay.

While Parton is known for its glassworks and coal, it is lesser known for its iron industry. The Parton Haematite Iron Company Limited was in operation from 1874, turning haematite iron ore into iron. This is common in the heyday of industry in the area with iron works at Lowca, Harrington and Whitehaven, all processing iron ore that came along the mineral railway from mines such as Florence mine. The iron ore that was smelted along the west coast of Cumbria was unusual compared to iron ore used in other areas as it was a specific for of haematite. A variety called kidney ore.

Haematite var. Kidney Ore, found on the Parton Foreshore.

Kidney ore is a type of haematite that forms when haematite precipitates into cavities and hence is unrestricted in how it grows. This results in a botryoidal habit which gives the look of 'kidneys'. Kidney ore, in the UK, is only found in Cumbria, and some spectacular specimens have been found from large scale mines such as Florence mine which closed in 2007- the last iron mine in Europe.
Kidney ore is very high in purity and due to this it is also used to create pigments such as Egremont red.

This is the first time we've found haematite at Parton, so it is evidently rare to find. It was fabulous to find a large specimen of what is (really very heavy!) kidney ore, displaying its classic botryoidal habit.