Geology and Minerals

Albertite

Albertite is a variety of asphalt found in the Albert Formation in Albert County, New Brunswick, and in a deposit at Dingwall, in the north-east of Scotland. It is a type of solid hydrocarbon. Albertite has a black colour, a resinous luster, and a hardness of 2½. It is less soluble in turpentine than the usual type of asphalt. It was from a mixture of albertite and pitch that kerosene was first distilled in 1846 by Abraham Gesner, a New Brunswick geologist who had heard stories of rocks that burned in the area and gave the material its first scientific study.

Also on this shelf

See also

• ▸Conodont
• ▸Avestan
• ▸Ben Lomond (Tasmania)

Uncatalogued shelf

Text from Wikipedia; plate via Wikimedia Commons. Text CC BY-SA 4.0; plate freely licensed (see Commons). Source record. Images and catalogue data are reproduced from open-access collections.