Famous Mineral Localities: The Erupcion/Ahumada Mine: Los Lamentos District Chihuahua, Mexico

Munos Salas, an early mining engineer at Los Lamentos, gave the names to some of the various successive caverns encountered in the course of mining. The Hajos de Plata ("Leaves of Silver") Cave he named after lhe silver-gray crystal plates of calcite lining the walls; another he called Cueva de los Angeles ("Cave of the Angels") because the cave resembled the shape of a shrine; a lhird cave, thick with beautiful while slalacliles, slalagmiles and columns, he named Cueva de Confesionario ("Cave of lhe Confessional"). In 1924 lhe Cueva de Monte Bianca ("Cave of the White Mountain") was encountered, and was so named because of a mounlainous mass of rubble encrusted with while calcile and gypsum at the cave entrance. This, in turn, connected to other caverns up-slope, the Cuevas de los Leones ("Caves of the Lions") and lhe Cueva del Coyote, and down-slope, the Cuevo del Nuevo Mundo ("Cave of lhe New World") and lhe Long Tom cave. Bennelt (1963) wrote of them as follows:

The trips I made through these linked caves were a never-to-be-forgotten experience. The chambers were lined with gypsum and calcile crystals of an incredible whiteness, which caughl the beams of the miners' lamps and reflected them all about, so that one seemed to be walking in a crystal palace. From the roof hung stalactites and from the floor rose slalagmiles. In places the panels of the walls were colored in red and purple where the ore was visible under the crust of calcium minerals. From the ceiling hung long filamenls of gypsum, which waved in the wind caused by the passage of our bodies. On the floors the gypsum crystals in certain places look the form of acanthus leaves whose tips were colored a delicate pink. As we walked we were conscious that each step took us over thousands of dollars of rich ore. One had only to crack lhe calcile or gypsum coaling wilh a geologisl's hammer and the dull luster of the ore appeared.

LABELING

All labels for Los Lamentos wulfenite and vanadinite specimens, except those rare examples definitely known to be from the Erupcion mine workings, should read "Ahumada mine, Los Lamenlos dislrict." The Los Lamentos "mine" (also called Los Lamenlos Viejo, the "Old Los Lamentos mine") is actually a different property in the district, situated on the east side of Juarez Ridge, in the Benilo Juarez group of claims; it is from this site that the first ore (primarily oxidized zinc ore) in the district was shipped in 1908, before the Eruption claim began to yield ore. But this "Los Lamentos" was soon abandoned and never produced wulfenite. In common parlance, "Los Lamentos" has been used loosely by mineral collectors to refer to the Eruption and Ahumada mines jointly; as long as this is understood to refer to the district rather than to a mine of that name it is not incorrect. The term "Eruption/ Ahumada mine" has also been used, but for the purpose of specimen labeling it is usually best to be more specific. Other mines in the district, all of only minor importance, include the Barrenda mine (an off-shoot of the Eruption manto, named for a type of prong-horned antelope), the La Mexico mine, the Triste mine, the Hidalgo prospects, the Lucia mine, the India mine and the Congreso mine-not to be confused with the Leon-Congreso mine at San Pedro Corralitos.