Sulfur with Gypsum

specimen number:
9892037

location:
San Felipe, Baja California, Mexico

description:
Sparkling brilliant yellow crystals of native sulfur across the top of matrix with crystallized colorless gypsum. In good condition.

San Felipe, located along the Gulf of California coast in Baja California, Mexico, was initially mapped and visited by Spanish missionaries like Father Fernando Consag in 1746 primarily as a coastal watering stop, later seeing minor sporadic mining and small-scale commercial collecting operations (such as at nearby prospects like the Veronica and Apache mines active intermittently through the late 20th century) that were never large industrial fixtures and are currently inactive outside of mineral specimen recovery. Geologically, the native sulfur deposits in this region formed through ancient hydrothermal fumarolic activity, where rising sulfur-rich vapors and hot fluids moved along local block faults and fractures, oxidized near the surface within varied country rocks like granites and sandstones, and precipitated native sulfur crystals alongside sulfate minerals like gypsum and alunite.

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