Fluorapatite

specimen number:
2133382

location:
Cerro de Mercado Mine, Durango, Mexico

description:
Loose gemmy yellow green terminated crystal of fluorapatite. In great condition. Classic stuff for this locality.

The Cerro de Mercado mine, located on the northern outskirts of Victoria de Durango in the state of Durango, Mexico, is a massive open-pit iron ore operation that forms one of the largest high-grade iron deposits in North America. Geologically, the deposit consists of an extensive, iron-rich volcanic replacement system hosted within Tertiary rhyolitic tuffs and ignimbrites associated with the Sierra Madre Occidental volcanic province. Hydrothermal fluids deposited massive bodies of magnetite, hematite, and martite, often forming sharp crystals within open vugs alongside well-formed accessory apatite. Although the prominent iron mountain was documented by Spanish explorers as early as 1552, formal industrial-scale mining and commercial quarrying did not begin until 1828 with the establishment of local ironworks. The modern era of structured open-pit exploitation expanded significantly in the early twentieth century to supply domestic steel manufacturing plants, and mechanized extraction has continued continuously under major mining conglomerates through the late twentieth century and remains fully active today.

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