Hemimorphite (SA-017)

specimen number:
9273045

location:
El Potosi Mine, Santa Eulalia, Chihuahua, Mexico

description:

This is a gorgeous cabinet display example for the species with colorless to red gemmy and lustrous crystals of hemimorphite measuring to 1.2 cm in size coming off of a sort of stalactitic matrix. In super condition.

The Potosi mine is located within the West Camp of the historic Santa Eulalia mining district in Chihuahua, Mexico, a region renowned for its massive lead-zinc-silver replacement deposits. Geologically, the ore bodies occur primarily as vertical chimneys and horizontal mantos hosted within thick sequences of Cretaceous limestone, formed where mineralizing hydrothermal fluids rose along fractures and dissolved the surrounding carbonate rock. Silver was initially discovered in the district around 1704, sparking centuries of intensive exploitation that directly fueled the early growth and foundational wealth of the nearby city of Chihuahua. Industrial-scale operations at the Potosi mine itself accelerated significantly during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries under corporate American ownership, which introduced modern machinery and extensive deep-shaft infrastructure to extract deep sulfide ores. Production at the Potosi mine continued robustly through most of the twentieth century, cementing its status as one of the most prolific and long-lived individual producers in the entire Santa Eulalia district before large-scale operations eventually wound down in the latter decades of the century.

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