Wulfenite (ATES-19)

specimen number:
9273142

location:
La Morita Mine, Chihuahua, Mexico

description:

A superb loose cluster of yellow semi lustrous to lustrous platy wulfenite crystals. This is in very good condition with just slight micro-chipping present. There are no points of attachment.

The La Morita mine, situated within the Ascension Municipality in the northern region of Chihuahua, Mexico, is a small, remote underground mining operation that has gained international prominence among mineralogists for producing aesthetic specimens of tabular orange wulfenite crystals closely associated with yellow to green botryoidal mimetite spheres. Geologically, the deposit is located within a highly oxidized, carbonate-hosted hydrothermal lead-zinc system, where regional fault structures allowed metal-rich fluids to interact with the surrounding limestone. Intense supergene weathering subsequent to the primary sulfide deposition triggered the oxidation of galena, releasing lead into solution to react with circulating molybdenum and arsenic, thereby precipitating sharp wulfenite plates and mimetite aggregates within open solution cavities and fractures. Historically, the site was originally worked on a limited, intermittent basis for base metals during the twentieth century, but it lacked the massive industrial output of larger regional districts like Los Lamentos or Santa Eulalia. Modern operations shifted focus dramatically around 2015 when independent miners began targeting the upper oxidized zones specifically for high-grade mineral specimens, initiating a series of productive hand-mining campaigns. Through 2026, while the site does not support large-scale industrial quarrying, the La Morita workings continue to be operated sporadically by specimen miners, remaining an important geological reference for studying the co-precipitation of secondary molybdate and arsenate minerals in the Chihuahuan desert.

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