LOOK
WHEN YOU
Pyrite
Beautiful and Fascinating despite not being Gold
Fig. 1. Personal Photograph taken inside the Orma J. Smith Natural History Museum
When you look at the Glen Evans Mineral Collection Pyrite specimen, you see a yellowish, brittle mineral commonly mistaken for gold that is embroiled in a long history of human and natural change, ingenuity, and greed, constantly defying expectation about its nature and the nature of its study. Pyrite is found across the globe, and formed under a great variety of conditions. It begins life as a dull, glimmering grey crystal, formed in igneous rock, in sedimentary coal, limestone, and shale, and as stalactite growth ("Pyrite"). From there, it is oxidation that gives Pyrite its golden color, and makes it the object of many a gold digger or rockhounder's attention.
Rockhounders such as Glen and Ruth Evans, the private donors of the Rock and Mineral collection at the College of Idaho's Natural History Museum, have been fascinated by pyrite for a number of reasons not including its inherent monetary value. Pyrite is a possible source for both sulphur and iron ore, it has been historically used to make primitive mirrors, as the spark in early guns, and for starting campfires when flint and steel is unavailable ("Pyrite"). It has a unique coloration and shine to it, forming in a variety of crystal shapes from cubes to more complex isohedrons depending on the circumstances of its creation. These features and more led rockhounders, either Glen Evans or a rockhounder that he traded with, down into a decommissioned iron mine, through waterlogged passageways, and to their brittle golden prize. The mine, in Pitcher Oklahoma, may have been dangerous at the time, but the prizes held within were nonetheless worth it for their beauty and their history.
Fig. 2. "Tri State Lead and Zinc District" by unknown photographer. https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=TR014