Golden Nuggets

❄Mudlark’s Advent, Day 23❄

Two lovely nuggets of fool’s gold (pyrite – a source of natural arsenic, also an unstable material which oxides easily and can play havoc with underground pipe works), and some two tone shells.

I recently read a dreamy speculation that the fabled Dick Whittington thought London’s streets were “paved with gold”, because, in 1580, the tons of pyrite Sir Martin Frobisher brought back from the New World (thought to be gold bearing ore that he gathered on trips funded by Queen Elizabeth I) was finally salvaged and smelted down for use in paving roads.

I love these shells that carry a shimmer like abalone, surrounded with muted concrete. I have no idea why this happens, other than time and tide. Can anyone enlighten me?