Wulfenite

specimen number:
8311509

location:
Ojuela Mine, Mapimi, Durango, Mexico

description:
Blocky lustrous crystals of wulfenite to 0.4 cm in size across the top of matrix. This is in good condition.

The Ojuela mine, situated near the town of Mapimi within the state of Durango, Mexico, is a historically significant underground silver-lead-zinc-copper operation. Geologically, this major Carbonate Replacement Deposit (CRD) is hosted within a thick sequence of heavily fractured Cretaceous-age limestones, primarily the Aurora Formation, which was intruded by Tertiary-age dikes and stocks. High-temperature hydrothermal solutions replaced the carbonate beds with extensive primary sulfide bodies, which later underwent intensive, deep supergene oxidation that created thousands of interconnected dissolution cavities containing exceptional secondary arsenate and sulfate mineral crystals. Historically, the outcroppings were discovered in 1598 by Spanish explorers, making it one of the earliest colonial mining operations in northern Mexico, though modernized large-scale corporate development did not begin until the 1890s when the Penoles company consolidated the district and built the famous 1033-foot Ojuela suspension bridge to cross a deep canyon. The underground facility produced thousands of tons of ore continuously through both world wars utilizing miles of subterranean tracks and shafts, until rising water levels in the lower levels and declining base-metal values forced the cessation of large-scale corporate mining in 1932. Through 2026, while industrial base-metal extraction has been inactive for nearly a century, the upper historic workings are actively leased and hand-mined by local cooperative miners, or gambusinos, specifically for mineral specimen recovery.

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