Ballyhass Lakes- Fluorite and fossils

I am almost sure that the Ballyhass Lakes once used to be a quarry; there are many similar looking places around Mallow.

This was our first planned collecting destination. We had no idea what we could expect, we didn`t know what we were looking for, and we did it for the first time in our lives! The day before for several hours, we watched movies on YT about rock hounding and collecting. What we learned was basically all we knew! Before I just used to buy my stones and I never really thought of field collecting.

We knew we had to look for so called veins, stripes of e.g. calcite running through the rock. After half an hour or so, Klaudia exclaimed "Hey! Why is this rock purple?!". I went to have a look and couldn`t believe my eyes! She found Fluorite! I was a bit foxed by the fact that I had not really heard of any Fluorite from Cork before, but I had heard of |Amethyst, so I thought it could be any one of the two.

We went there on another occasion and found even more Fluorite, it was badly weathered and fractured, but I love it so much because it was our first serious finding!

Here it is

Samples that I`ve kept (Photo: Marina Gonzales Bardon)

"Spare" samples (Photo: Marina Gonzales Bardon)

Some other findings from Ballyhass are fossils.

Photo: Marina Gonzales Bardon

Photo: Marina Gonzales Bardon

The Syringopora Coral is the one I`m the most proud of :) EDIT: There is a spelling mistake on the label.
A lecturer from UCC told me that Fluorite had never been reported from Ballyhass so we are the first to have found it!!!! Yeeeeeeyyy!!!