FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[Tobi]

What are your favourite localities for BARYTE? My favourites are:

- Clara Mine, Oberwolfach, Black Forest, Baden-Württemberg, Germany
- Frizington, West Cumberland Iron Field, Cumbria, England, UK
- Cerro Warihuyn, Miraflores, Huamalíes Province, Huánuco Department, Peru
- Xiefang Mine, Ruijin Co., Ganzhou Prefecture, Jiangxi Province, China
- Meikle Mine, Goldstrike Mines, Bootstrap District, Elko Co., Nevada, USA

[Jesse Fisher]

I've always been fond of the barites from the West Cumbrian (formerly Cumberland) Iron Orefield. At the height of mining in the area during the latter part of the 19th century, there were dozens of active mines, many of which produced specimens of barite, calcite, quartz, hematite, and other minerals. Unfortunately, it is difficult, if not impossible to determine which of the mines a specimen may have come from, so the given location is usually the name of one of the local villages, such as Frizington, Egremont, or Cleator Moor.

[Bob Harman]

I like combination Baryte specimens. These have not been previously shown. All were self-collected.

[Bob Harman]

A lustrous strongly color zoned baryte with some internal crazing. Nicely terminated and lying flat upon the underlying quartz. Under the right lighting the zoned area can be seen as tiny marcasites sparkling in the zone. Self-collected about 10 years ago.

[R Saunders]

Clear quartz crystals with pink Baryte blades. The Baryte is from North America. 170 grams.

[Bob Harman]

My favorites include finding nice quality doubly terminated barytes. Here are 2 of several that I have.

[Mathias]

Here are my favourite barites:

[Mathias]

I forgot my Shangulowe barites;

I have 2 specimen, purchased both this year from Belgium collectors/vendor.

[Tobi]

I discovered that our FMF fellow Niels Brouwer wrote a wonderful article on Mindat about the variety of baryte from famous Clara Mine, I think this is a good addition to this topic:

https://www.mindat.org/a/grube_clara_baryte

Great work, Niels!

______
P.S. Mathias, please add the sizes of your specimens.

[Niels Brouwer]

[Tobi]

I also like Barytes from Clara Mine, though there are none in my collection at the moment. Have you ever been to the Clara Mine Museum in the Black Forest? I was there some years ago and I can highly recommend it, not only for baryte lovers:
https://www.mineral-forum.com/message-board/viewtopic.php?t=3398

Tobi

[bob kerr]

My favorites are the Elk Creek, South Dakota barites - and some that have come out recently set a new standard of quality. The association with calcites adds icing.

bob

[Robert Seitz]

[Tobi]

[Josele]

Here comes a honey colored Chinese baryte with weird deformed faces and unusual fluorescence:

[Tobi]

Nice colour and an interesting habit. I would not have recognized this as barite.

[Niels Brouwer]

Of course as a baryte collector the list of favourites is virtually endless, but I thought I would share a few recent additions to my collection that exemplify the immense diversity that makes it such a fun species to collect.

4 primary colours, 4 countries, 4 different associations with other minerals, 4 different crystal habits, but all of them with baryte as the star of the show.

[jose luis jara jara]

Hello

Precious the Spanish piece of Barite

[Dany Mabillard]

What beautiful specimens of barytes and nice photos !

[Bob Harman]

It is interesting to me that the Elk Creek Meade County South Dakota barytes, as shown above by Bob Kerr, have much in common with the Indiana barytes found in geodes as those from Monroe County.

The South Dakota barytes are found in rock structures known as concretions. The Indiana barytes are also found in the rock structure, geodes. These 2 rock structures are "cousins". Both have some % hollows with barytes often associated with calcites in the central cavity of the rock structure. Both weather out of the surrounding sedimentary matrix, often into creek beds or can be collected directly from their surrounding matrix.

In addition, the collector portion of interest, the crystals, can be culled out of the surrounding rock to make the specimen that much more collectible.
Lots of similarities here. See my example pictured below. Two high end dealers have suggested culling the calcite/baryte area out to make the crystal containing area of the geode into a more traditional specimen, much like the Elk Creek baryte examples are. BOB