Arsenic

specimen number:
1052813

location:
Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines, Haut-Rhin, Grand Est, France

description:
Gray botryoidal native arsenic across the top of matrix. Good old time example from this famous mining district.

The St. Marie-aux-Mines mining district, situated in the Vosges Mountains of Alsace, France, is an ancient silver and polymetallic locality with a rich industrial past. Geologically, the deposit consists of an intricate network of hydrothermal veins that cut through polymetamorphic basement rocks, chiefly gneisses and migmatites. These vein systems are characterized by distinct mineral zones containing silver-bearing galena, sphalerite, chalcopyrite, and native arsenic, which later underwent oxidation to produce various secondary arsenate and carbonate species within localized fault fissures. Underground extraction began as early as the tenth century under monastic control and experienced a major economic boom during the sixteenth century under the administration of regional dukes. Industrial mining targeted deep silver, copper, and lead veins until the exhaustion of major ore bodies led to a steady decline in output, culminating in the permanent cessation of all commercial extraction operations by the mid-twentieth century.

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