France

This tag collects together all the current minerals we have in stock that come from France and its overseas territories.

Below the product listings, I’ve gone into a little depth about mineral specimens from France – famous locales and specimens, and those that are most well known amongst collectors.

Mining in France is somewhat minimal currently, with many historic mines and deposits having been mined out or closed due to no longer being economical.

However, there are still numerous deposits for the modern electronic age – tungsten, antimony, gold, lead, zinc, germanium, copper, lithium, and molybdenum. Lithium, especially, could be very beneficial for French mining in future.

Gold exists in various amounts along riverbanks in France as alluvial gold.

France is quite interesting minerallogically as it actually publishes volumes of the known mineral deposits of the country in quite some detail – for anyone deeply interested in the subject the books Inventaire minéralogique de la France would be of tremendous importance.

France is the type locality (first recorded location) of a number of minerals, over a hundred – including some rather well known minerals like anatase, autunite, azurite, berthierite, chromite, dumortierite, epidote, heterosite, nickel, and triplite – and those are just the minerals for which France is the type locality!

 

 

We do have some more information, and sometimes specimens from specific French locales.

French locales

 

 

We may have some other specimens from France, check the links below.

France

Fossils from France - Minerals from France