Cerussite

specimen number:
2102378

location:
Flux Mine, Santa Cruz Co., Arizona, USA

description:
A loose cluster of bright white jackstraw cerussite crystals. In good condition all around without matrix.

The Flux mine, situated on the western slopes of the Patagonia Mountains within Santa Cruz County, Arizona, United States, is a historically significant underground lead-zinc-silver operation celebrated for producing distinctive and beautiful mineral specimens. Geologically, this complex deposit is hosted within a steeply dipping, highly fractured fault zone where Paleozoic limestone and Cretaceous volcanic rocks were intruded by Laramie-age granitic bodies. Ascending, sulfur-bearing hydrothermal fluids circulated through these structural fracture networks, precipitating massive sulfide minerals including galena and sphalerite, which later underwent intensive supergene oxidation near the surface to form a rich suite of secondary lead carbonates, sulfates, and copper silicates within the local solution cavities. Historically, the deposit was discovered and initially worked on a small scale by Spanish explorers and early American frontiersmen during the 1850s, but large-scale industrial development did not begin until the Flux Mining Company and later the Sterling Development Company initiated deep underground shaft and tunnel extraction around 1882. The mine operated sporadically under various corporate owners, including the American Smelting and Refining Company, expanding its underground drifts to supply rich ores to regional smelters through both world wars until declining metal prices and the depletion of easily accessible high-grade reserves led to the permanent cessation of regular mining operations in 1963. Mineralogically, the Flux mine achieved international fame among collectors for its extraordinary occurrences of jackstraw cerussite, a highly prized, delicate variety of lead carbonate that forms intricate, crisscrossing networks of elongated, water-clear to snowy-white acicular and tabular crystals resembling a jumbled pile of straw. Through 2026, while the historic underground workings are completely sealed and inaccessible, specimens of this exquisite jackstraw cerussite preserved in institutional archives and private collections continue to serve as the definitive benchmark for studying delicate carbonate crystallization habits within the heavily oxidized ore zones of the American Southwest.

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