A team led by the Natural History Museum (NHM) mineralogist, Mike Rumsey found a new emerald green species of a mineral during examination of a rock, which was mined in Cornwall around 220 years ago. It has been named Kernowite – after Kernow, the Cornish language word for the county. The rock from which the mineral was found, has been a part of the museum’s collection since 1964 and it was labelled as liroconite. However, now the team has found that the chemical composition of the newly discovered mineral is different. Structure of kernowite is the same as liroconite however it contains iron instead of aluminium, thus giving it the dark beautiful emerald green color. Most of the liroconite used to come from mines around Wheal Gorland which were probably active between 1790 and 1909. The new description been approved by the authorities at International Mineralogical Association and the details of kernowite would be published in the Mineralogical Magazine in 2021.
