Higher Roughton Gill (Balliway Rigg), Roughton Gill, Caldbeck, Allerdale, Cumbria, England, UKi

Regional Level Types
Higher Roughton Gill (Balliway Rigg)	- not defined -
Roughton Gill	Group of Mines (Abandoned)
Caldbeck	Civil Parish
Allerdale	District
Cumbria	County
England	Constituent Country
UK	Country

Higher Roughton Gill (Balliway Rigg), Roughton Gill, Caldbeck Fells Mining Region, Cumbria, England, UK

Description: post collection growths as minute spiky clusters on silver specimens, not found in situ. Green et al. (2008): "The presence of acanthite on several of the specimens we have examined in this study is almost certainly due to the oxidation of tiny masses of supergene silver, although we have only been able to positively identify silver by EDS on one tiny specimen."

Description: Green et al. (2008): "It is worthwhile noting that unfortunately, no (dolomite) specimens were available for analysis in this study, and the possibility that some material may be ankerite cannot be dismissed."

Habit: aggregates of radiating lath-like crystals; randomly disposed blades

Colour: pale blue to turquoise (laths); blue to blue-green (blades)

Description: Green et al. (2008): "An azurite specimen in the R. J. King collection at the National Museum Wales, with crystals up to 15 mm long, is reputed to be from higher Roughton Gill (Cooper and Stanley, 1990). If genuine it is by far the best example of the species from the Caldbeck Fells. No similar specimens have ever been found, and the history of the specimen, which was obtained from an old collection by the north-of-England mineral dealer W. F. Davidson, is sufficiently uncertain that we consider the occurrence remains unproven. The presence of large crystals of azurite, a mineral which requires a relatively high partial pressure of CO2 to crystallise, is geochemically unlikely in the Caldbeck Fells."

Habit: pseudocubic

Colour: dark green, yellow-brown to pale green

Habit: massive; tabular to blocky; rhombohedra

Colour: colourless to white

Habit: powdery masses

Colour: yellow

Description: Kingsbury reference. Kingsbury and Hartley (1957): "as yellow, powdery masses, with jarosite and chrysocolla, in somewhat chalcedonic quartz from the outcrop of the main Roughtongill South Vein along the flank of Balliway Rigg." Green et al. (2008): "Beaverite was claimed from the outcrop of the South Vein on Balliway Rigg by Kingsbury and Hartley (1957b, 1960), but was not noted in an unpublished manuscript describing the minerals of the area in 1951. The specimens in the Kingsbury collection are rather non-descript, comprising beaverite, galena and somewhat corroded cerussite. They are not similar in appearance to any material of undoubted provenance collected in the recent past, and given Kingsbury's proven propensity for mislabelling and the probable late date of collection, they cannot be considered trustworthy."

Habit: spherical aggregates of rhombic crystals; crusts; rhombic to pseudocubic

Colour: yellow, yellowish-brown, greenish-brown, brown

Description: Green et al. (2008): "Beudantite was identified by XRD and WDS as yellow to brown euhedral rhombic crystals up to about 0.2 mm on edge, which are sometimes aggregated into spherical masses. It also forms crusts on iron-stained quartz. Beudantite occurs with baryte and lepidocrocite in cellular quartz veinstone found in screes at the northeast end of the exposure of the vein in higher Roughton Gill. Screes on the east side of the valley produced well-formed yellow to dark brown rhombic to pseudo-cubic crystals in an iron-stained matrix. The exact source of these latter specimens, which are sometimes associated with well-crystallised carminite, is unknown. Beudantite was noted with carminite at Balliway Rigg in an unpublished manuscript prepared by Arthur Kingsbury in 1951. It was later described with a variety of other minerals including, jarosite, plumbojarosite, and beaverite by Kingsbury and Hartley (1960). The claimed Roughton Gill alunite jarosite group specimens in the Kingsbury collection are not particularly spectacular but they do not give the impression of a coherent group, which were all collected from the same locality. Many of the other specimens on which the 1960 'carminite and beudantite' paper is based, including for example beudantite with olivenite from Dry Gill Mine, and beudantite from Ingray Gill, are almost certainly fraudulent. Kingsbury's beudantite specimens cannot be considered trustworthy."

Habit: powdery encrustations

Colour: pale yellow

Description: From the flank of Balliway Rigg in higher Roughton Gill (Hartley, 1984). Kingsbury claimed the occurrence as 'new to GB'. Also from the 90fm level dumps as a yellow powder in cavities in a quartz-galena matrix with cerussite, caledonite, leadhillite and malachite.

Colour: metallic purple

Description: Green et al. (2008): "Bournonite was noted intergrown with galena from workings on the South Vein in higher Roughton Gill in an unpublished manuscript by Arthur Kingsbury (Cooper and Stanley, 1990). We have been unable to find any bournonite labelled from higher Roughton Gill in the Kingsbury Collection, but the mineral has been found as microscopic inclusions in galena on the strike extension of South Vein at Driggith Mine (Stanley and Vaughan, 1981). Although the record is quite likely to be correct, it is perhaps best considered unproven."

Habit: drusy crusts (on goethite); earthy masses and encrustations associated with partially oxidised sulphides (on vein quartz).

Colour: translucent white

Habit: velvety encrustations; radiating sprays of acicular crystals; elongated prisms; laths; feathery

Colour: pale blue, deep blue, sky blue

Habit: prismatic

Colour: deep carmine red

Description: Green et al. (2008): "Carminite was identified by XRD (to differentiate it from mawbyite) and EDS in material found in a scree on the east side of the valley at the northeastern end of the study area. Characteristic deep red pointed prismatic crystals up to about 0.1 mm in length accompany segnitite in small cavities in thin veins in quartz-rich wallrock. Carminite is also almost certainly present as minutely drusy deep red resinous encrustations in specimens found loose in screes on the west side of the valley, but they are too small for analysis by XRD. Carminite was claimed from the outcrop of the South Vein in higher Roughton Gill by Kingsbury and Hartley (1960). The Kingsbury specimens are different from any that we have collected, but they closely resemble classic material from Tintic, Utah, USA. They comprise mimetite, beudantite, and carminite, with grey copper sulphides, chalcopyrite, and arsenopyrite. The sulphide assemblage is unlike anything we have found along the exposure of the South Vein in higher Roughton Gill. The Kingsbury carminite specimens are likely to be fraudulent."

Habit: acicular, blocky, prismatic and tabular crystals, commonly twinned.

Colour: colourless to white

Habit: dull earthy botryoidal crust

Colour: black

Description: Green et al. (2008): "Chalcopyrite is the commonest primary copper mineral in the vein exposure. It occurs as idiomorphic masses in quartz veinstone, these are sometimes bright and unoxidised, but more commonly partly replaced by goethite. Blue and green oxidation rims commonly surround chalcopyrite."

Habit: monoclinic blades

Colour: pale blue

Habit: botryoidal crusts

Colour: blue to green (coloured by included malachite)

Description: Confirmed by EDS and XRD by Green et al. (2008).

Colour: brick red

Habit: acicular

Colour: blue

Habit: rhombohedra, sometimes aggregated into spherical masses; drusy crusts

Colour: yellow to brown

Habit: botryoidal crusts made up of acicular crystals a few µm across.

Colour: black

Habit: rims and encrustations (around galena and other sulphides); hexagonal plates (in small cavities in quartz veinstone)

Colour: dark purple; metallic blue to purple

Colour: cream to brown

Description: Green et al. (2008): "the possibility that some material may be ankerite cannot be dismissed."

Habit: cubo-octahedra

Habit: powdery; botryoidal and/or stalactitic masses

Colour: limonitic to dark brown

Habit: gossanous material containing numerous small cavities lined with earthy red powder

Colour: dark red to brown

Habit: radiating sprays of millimetre-sized platy crystals grading into botryoidal crusts

Colour: colourless to white; pale blue

Habit: as thin bright pearly plates, which loosely encrust cavities in vein quartz; as aggregates of discoidal crystals up to 3 mm across; as well-formed rhombs up to 3 mm across; and as platy hexagonal crystals with a perfect one-directional cleavage up to about 5 mm on edge.

Colour: very pale blue (Cooper & Stanley, 1990)

Description: Cooper & Stanley (1990): "From 'Thief Gills (northern)' [probably the outcrop workings in higher Roughton Gill] (Hartley Collection. Leeds Univ., det. University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST): IR."

Habit: earthy crusts up to about 1 mm thick, made up of minute lath-like pearly crystals.

Colour: white

Habit: drusy crusts

Colour: pale slightly pearly brown

Description: Kingsbury reference. Kingsbury and Hartley (1958): "occurs as a yellow to brown powdery aggregates, associated with beaverite, beudantite, and chrysocolla in chalcedonic quartz, in the outcrop of the south vein along the flank of Balliway Rigg (B.M. 1956, 77; 1958, 47)." Green et al. (2008): "Jarosite was identified by EDS as drusy crusts of pale slightly pearly brown crystals a few tens of micrometres across in cavernous iron-stained quartz matrix in loose screes on the east side of the valley. Jarosite was claimed from several locations in the Caldbeck Fells by Kingsbury and Hartley (1958). These include higher Roughton Gill where jarosite is described with beudantite, beaverite and 'chrysocolla' in chalcedonic quartz. No material similar to the rather nondescript Kingsbury specimens has been discovered in our investigations and bearing in mind Arthur Kingsbury's propensity for mis-labelling specimens it must be regarded with some skepticism."

Habit: rhombic crystals up to 0.1mm on edge

Colour: yellow

Habit: lath-like

Colour: colourless to white

Description: Green et al. (2008): "The specimen in the Kingsbury collection at the NHM is described by Cooper and Stanley (1990) and comprises radiating sprays and crystal sections to 20 mm with leadhillite. In common with the Brae Fell specimens, it is almost certainly a fragment of an old specimen from the Leadhills-Wanlockhead district in Scotland. It is amazingly large, a single isolated example, strongly resembles Leadhills specimens and is unlike anything ever collected by anyone else at Roughton Gill."

Habit: blocky pseudohexagonal; thin tabular to prismatic.

Description: Occasionally occurs as pseudomorphs and epimorphs after lanarkite. Green et al. (2008): "Fine lustrous pale yellow leadhillite crystals to 10 mm in the Kingsbury Collection at the NHM are described by Cooper and Stanley (1990). While these may be genuine, they are much larger than any that have been reported since, and given Kingsbury's penchant for claiming old-time specimens from the Leadhills-Wanlockhead district as Caldbeck Fells, they should be treated with caution."

Habit: drusy crusts of sub-millimetre size tabular crystals; reniform and botryoidal crusts

Colour: dark reddish-brown to black

Description: sometimes as epimorphs after supergene baryte.

Habit: blocky to elongated tabular; bladed; crusts.

Colour: deep azure-blue

Description: Cooper & Stanley (1990): "As small, poor crystals in altered sulphides from an old working on the Silver Gill lode [NY301342].". Although many early records note Roughton Gill as a locality for fine specimens of linarite, it seems likely that most of the specimens claimed for the locality originated in the nearby workings of Red Gill Mine (see Bridges et al., 2008 for a detailed discussion).

Habit: acicular; fibrous masses; crusts.

Colour: pale to dark green

Habit: drusy crusts; minute acicular crystals.

Habit: squat to elongated hexagonal prisms; curved 'rice grains'; rounded barrels.

Colour: yellow, green, brown, white.

Description: Green et al. (2008): "full confirmation (of redgillite vs. its dimorph montetrisaite) requires XRD for which there is insufficient material at present."

Habit: pyramidal; blocky.

Colour: olive green; yellow to yellow-brown; brown.

Description: Green et al. (2008): "The presence of acanthite on several of the specimens we have examined in this study is almost certainly due to the oxidation of tiny masses of supergene silver, although we have only been able to positively identify silver by EDS on one tiny specimen."

Habit: rounded crystals.

Colour: pale yellow to colourless.

Habit: botryoidal crusts

Colour: pale to dark green

Habit: drusy encrustations and crystals.

Colour: pale lavender blue to dark blue; yellow-brown.

Description: The first report of plumbogummite from the South Vein in higher Roughton Gill is due to Arthur Kingsbury, who recorded specimens "along the back of the south vein, on the flank of Balliway Rigg, from just above the waterfall to the junction of higher Roughtongill with the northern Thief Gill" in an unpublished manuscript completed in 1951. A number of superb specimens, with very precise labels are preserved in the Kingsbury collection at the NHM.

Habit: pseudocubic

Colour: dark brown

Description: Single grain sufficiently sulphate-rich Green et al. (2008): "Plumbojarosite was described from an outcrop of the South Vein in Higher Roughton Gill with galena, cerussite, 'chrysocolla', carminite, beudantite, jarosite and beaverite by Kingsbury and Hartley (1960). The specimens are dissimilar to those that we have collected and must be regarded with suspicion."

Description: The hard manganese oxides that occur in the Caldbeck Fells were commonly described using the 'catch all' term psilomelane (see Cooper and Stanley, 1990). We have identified cryptomelane, cesàrolite, coronadite, manganite and romanèchite from higher Roughton Gill by XRD, WDS and EDS. Further studies of the manganese oxides would be useful."

Habit: massive

Colour: silvery

Description: Green et al. (2008): "Pyrolusite or manganite was noted in one of the Thief gills by Davidson and Thomson (1951). Our analyses have only confirmed manganite, but very few specimens were available for study. Further field and analytical work is required to establish the diversity of manganese oxide minerals in the area."

Habit: botryoidal to stalactitic masses; hexagonal barrels and plates; elongated prisms; lenticular crystals; drusy microcrystalline crusts.

Colour: yellow; orange-yellow; orange-brown; yellow-green; green.

Description: Occasionally as pseudomorphs and epimorphs after cerussite and hydrocerussite.

Habit: massive; saccharoidal; stumpy pyramidal crystals.

Colour: white

Description: Green et al. (2008): "Quartz is the major vein filling along the exposure of the South Vein in higher Roughton Gill. It varies in texture from compact, massive, white, fine-grained almost chalcedonic infillings to loose saccharoidal masses and white coarsely crystalline masses with numerous cavities containing stumpy pyramidal crystals.

Habit: acicular

Colour: light green

Habit: botryoidal

Colour: sooty black

Habit: crusts; spherulitic aggregates typically 0.5mm across

Colour: blue-green

Description: Green et al. (2008): "Surprisingly, rosasite was not described from Britain until 1957, when Kingsbury and Hartley noted it from seven localities including the exposure of the South Vein in higher Roughton Gill. This is not listed as a rosasite locality by Hartley (1984), but the Roughton Gill finds have been duplicated by many other collectors (see Cooper and Stanley, 1990) and there is no reason to doubt their authenticity."

Habit: crusts

Colour: brown to grey

Habit: pointed; chisel-shaped.

Colour: pale brown; colourless.

Description: Cooper & Stanley (1990): "Recently found on a few small specimens collected from an outcrop of the Roughton Gill South vein in higher Roughton Gill. It occurs as a sparkling pale brown encrustation on altered galena with mattheddleite, lanarkite, leadhillite and caledonite (det. Leeds Univ.: XRD, D.I. Green in prep.)"

Habit: rhombohedra; drusy aggregates and crusts.

Colour: pale yellow to yellow-brown.

Colour: red to red-brown (crystals); dark brown (more compact masses)

Habit: rhombohedra and trigonal prisms, some highly elongated.

Colour: colourless to pale blue.

Description: Green et al. (2008): "Tetrahedrite-tennantite with an intermediate composition is listed from higher Roughton Gill by Hartley (1984). We have been unable to trace the specimen in the Kingsbury Collection at the NHM. Tetrahedrite has been confirmed along the easterly strike extension of the Roughton Gill South Vein at Driggith Mine (Stanley and Vaughan, 1981), but tennantite remains unconfirmed. There is no reference to tetrahedrite or tennantite from higher Roughton Gill in any of Kingsbury's X-ray catalogues and it may be that specimens were found independently by Jack Hartley. A more extensive investigation of the primary mineralisation is required to resolve this problem."

Description: Green et al. (2008): "Tetrahedrite-tennantite with an intermediate composition is listed from higher Roughton Gill by Hartley (1984). We have been unable to trace the specimen in the Kingsbury Collection at the NHM. Tetrahedrite has been confirmed along the easterly strike extension of the Roughton Gill South Vein at Driggith Mine (Stanley and Vaughan, 1981), but tennantite remains unconfirmed. There is no reference to tetrahedrite or tennantite from higher Roughton Gill in any of Kingsbury's X-ray catalogues and it may be that specimens were found independently by Jack Hartley. A more extensive investigation of the primary mineralisation is required to resolve this problem."

Habit: massive dull patches

Colour: black

Description: Green et al. (2008): "A tetrahedrite-tennantite intermediate is listed from higher Roughton Gill without description by Hartley (1984), but we have been unable to trace the specimen in the Kingsbury Collection at the NHM. Since tetrahedrite has been confirmed along the strike extension of the Roughton Gill South Vein at Driggith Mine (Stanley and Vaughan, 1981), and the specimen does not appear to be linked to Kingsbury, there seems no reason to doubt the report, but whether it represents tetrahedrite or tennantite is unknown."

Habit: tablets and plates.

Colour: yellow and orange-yellow to orange.