Silver (J-135)

specimen number:
9273228

location:
New Nevada Mine, Batopilas, Chihuahua, Mexico

description:

Classic twinned crystal of native silver with little attached matrix. Beautifully arranged and in super condition. Wonderful Mexican silver specimen.

The New Nevada mine, situated within the historic Batopilas mining district in the rugged canyon country of southwestern Chihuahua, Mexico, was a notable underground operation worked primarily for its exceptionally rich native silver ores. Geologically, the deposit is part of a low-sulfidation epithermal vein system hosted within Cretaceous-aged andesites and diorites of the Batopilas native silver district. Hydrothermal fluids migrating through structural fault planes deposited spectacular masses of wire, dendritic, and crystalline native silver within a primary matrix of calcite, with very little associated base-metal mineralization. Industrial mining at the New Nevada vein was heavily developed during the late nineteenth century, reaching its peak operational phase under the American-backed Batopilas Mining Company managed by Alexander Shepherd between 1880 and 1910. Following the disruptions of the Mexican Revolution and the eventual exhaustion of the main high-grade silver pockets, formal commercial operations at the underground mine ceased by the mid-1920s, leaving the site abandoned with only sporadic prospecting by independent miners in the decades that followed.

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