Goethite with Calcite, Quartz

specimen number:
1052701

location:
Pribram, Bohemia, Czech Republic

description:
Velvety botryoidal crystallized goethite across the top of matrix with crystallized calcite and minor quartz. In good condition, a neat historical example for the species. The specimen comes with a set of antique labels as shown at the end of the video. One of these labels consented original acquisition date in 1906.

The Pribram mining district, situated in the Central Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic approximately sixty kilometers southwest of Prague, is one of Europe's deepest and most historically significant polymetallic and uranium localities. Geologically, this world-class deposit is located within the Barrandian Neoproterozoic and Paleozoic sedimentary sequence, structurally modified by the intensive tectonic events of the Variscan orogeny. Hydrothermal mineralizing fluids traveling through deep fault fractures and structural shears precipitated hundreds of thick, near-vertical veins rich in primary argentiferous galena, sphalerite, and complex silver sulfosalts, which later shifted into deep-seated uraninite (pitchblende) mineralization at lower horizons. Historically, primitive silver and lead extraction dates back to at least the thirteenth century, with formal municipal mining laws established in 1311. The district underwent a massive industrial expansion during the nineteenth century under the Austrian Empire, particularly at the Maria and Vojtech shafts, the latter achieving global fame in 1875 as the first vertical shaft on Earth to reach a depth of one thousand meters. Following World War II, the district experienced a dramatic, intensive rebirth under Soviet direction from 1948 to 1989, utilizing forced labor and political prisoners to extract massive quantities of strategic uranium ore. Economic exhaustion, escalating structural costs, and geopolitical changes following the Velvet Revolution ultimately forced the total and permanent cessation of all commercial underground mining operations in 1991.

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