Fluorapatite

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Classic Mexican thumbnail specimen, this a glassy gemmy yellowish green terminated crystal of fluorapatite. In great condition. The Cerro de Mercado mine, located just north of Durango City in Durango, Mexico, is a world-class iron deposit mined largely as a massive open-pit quarry. Geologically, it is a premier example of an Iron Oxide-Apatite (IOA) or Kiruna-type deposit, featuring an immense high-grade hematite and magnetite ore body hosted within an altered Tertiary rhyolitic ignimbrite complex. The mineralization is associated with intense hydrothermal and volcanic processes that formed extensive replacement bodies and veins, famously containing well-formed crystals of yellow-green fluorapatite and quartz within open fractures. The historic mountain of iron was first documented by Spanish explorer Gines Vazquez de Mercado in 1552, but large-scale industrial mining did not begin until the late nineteenth century around 1882 with the founding of the Durango Iron Works. Taken over by Fundidora de Monterrey in the early twentieth century and later managed by Altos Hornos de Mexico (AHMSA), this colossal open-cut operation served as a cornerstone of the Mexican steel industry for well over a century, maintaining continuous, heavy industrial output into the 2020s.