Vanadinite (O-0055)

specimen number:
9273151

location:
Apex Mine, San Carlos, Chihuahua, Mexico

description:

A superb grouping of lustrous orange skeletal vanadinite crystals. There are no points of attachment, this is complete all around and in super condition. Minor calcite is present. Classic locality for the species.

The Apex mine, situated near San Carlos within the Manuel Benavides Municipality of Chihuahua, Mexico, is a historic underground lead-silver operation famous among collectors for producing exceptional secondary mineral specimens. Geologically, the deposit is a carbonate-replacement system featuring primary bodies of argentiferous galena hosted within thick sequence Cretaceous limestone formations. Extensive supergene oxidation of these primary base-metal sulfides altered the upper portions of the ore zones, resulting in the precipitation of a brilliant suite of secondary minerals, most notably sharp, red-orange vanadinite crystals and tabular wulfenite crystals resting on a matrix of colorless calcite. Industrial mining at the site occurred in two principal phases, initially being worked on a small scale during the late nineteenth century before undergoing a commercial revival that spanned from approximately 1930 until its final closure in 1952. While corporate extraction of lead and silver ore permanently ceased in the mid-twentieth century, the remote underground workings have been periodically entered by independent specimen miners to recover its world-class vanadinite clusters.

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