Vivianite

specimen number:
1052683

location:
Llallagua, Rafael Bustillo, Potosi, Bolivia

description:
Deep blue sprays of lustrous translucent vivianite crystals across the top of matrix. Some damage present as seen.

The Siglo Veintiuno and Catavi underground and open-pit mining complexes, located at Llallagua within the Bustillo Province of Potosi, Bolivia, represent the world's greatest single deposit of vein-type tin ore and a premier locality for rare phosphate and sulfide mineral specimens. Geologically, this immense deposit is centered on the Salvadora stock, a heavily altered Miocene-age quartz porphyry volcanic neck that intruded a thick sequence of Paleozoic shales and sandstones. Hydrothermal mineralizing fluids associated with this subvolcanic system precipitated a dense, complex network of steeply dipping veins containing massive cassiterite alongside a remarkable suite of secondary minerals, including magnificent crystals of wavellite, vauxite, paravauxite, bismuthinite, and vivianite hosted within an altered silicate matrix. Historically, small-scale silver and tin quarrying began under Spanish colonial rule, but the modern era of industrial underground exploitation exploded in 1894 when Simon Iturri Patino purchased the crucial claims, organizing the Patino Mines and Enterprises Consolidated in 1924 to create the world's most productive tin mining empire. Following the Bolivian National Revolution, the properties were nationalized in October 1952 under the state-owned corporate entity COMIBOL, which managed the sprawling, deep-level underground shafts and massive Catavi mill through decades of intensive global production until crashing international tin prices forced the permanent cessation of large-scale state operations in 1986.

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