LEADHILLS & WANLOCKHEAD - Type Locality Species.

Minerals of Scotland

LEADHILLS & WANLOCKHEAD

PHOTO GALLERY

Leadhills - Wanlockhead
Type Locality Species

including photographs of

Caledonite - Lanarkite - Leadhillite

CALEDONITE with Linarite - Leadhills, Lanarkshire.
Green, tabular, elongated prisms in parallel-growth, stacked on royal blue linarite. (view - c7x5mms).

Leadhills and Wanlockhead are the type localities for nine, bona fide mineral species: caledonite, chenite, lanarkite, leadhillite, macphersonite, mattheddleite, plattnerite, scotlandite and susannite.

Five of these minerals were first described during the lead-mining period, early in the 19th century - caledonite, lanarkite, leadhillite, plattnerite and susannite. The other four - chenite, macphersonite, mattheddlite and scotlandite have been described in the last two decades.

All of these species tend to form small crystals and are rare to very rare. The species macphersonite
and susannite are polymorphs of leadhillite. Scotlandite is the first, naturally-occuring sulphite species to be described. In addition, the dubious species, plumbonacrite has its type locality at Wanlockhead.

LANARKITE

Lanarkite, a secondary lead species (Lead Sulphate Oxide), is one of the rarest of the type locality species to be found in the early days of mining.

Described from the Susanna Mine at Leadhills, it was named for the county that Leadhills fells within.

The county is now sub-divided into districts which form part of the larger Strathclyde region.

Lanarkite, typically, forms elongated, bladed crystals, varying in colour, but with greenish to greyish tones being the most common.

Crystals may often be unterminated. Radiating sprays and parallel-growing groups are not uncommon.

LANARKITE
Susanna Mine, Leadhills, Lanarkshire.
Parallel and radial groups of greenish, bladed crystals to c 16mms.

LEADHILLITE
Leadhillite is a hydrous Lead Carbonate with Sulphate. Crystals are generally tabular and hexagonal, transparent or translucent. Though normally small, to a few millimetres, some examples have approached 25mms, about 1 inch in size.

LEADHILLITE
Belton Grain, Wanlockhead.
above - Tabular, greenish crystals to c 2mms.
right - Crystal aggregates scattered across matrix,
associated with green & orange-yellow pyromorphite.

CALEDONITE

Caledonite, a hydrous, lead-copper carbonate with sulphate, is often well-crystallized and the crystals invariably have interesting forms.

Its colour varies from verdigreen to blue-green and crystals are transparent to translucent. However, it is found only as micro-crystals, often associated with linarite and other secondary lead species.

The name is derived from the Latin name assigned to Scotland by the Romans, Caledonia.

Further information regarding caledonite's interesting early history can be found on the Scotland type localities page.
(link at bottom).

More background information concerning type localities
and Scotland can be found on the page relating to
Type Localities & Mineral Names.

CALEDONITE
Dod Hill, Leadhills, Lanarkshire, Scotland.
1mm crystal embedded on a blue linarite crystal.

the end

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