El Conjuro Mines
Busquístar, Granada, Andalusia, Spain
A group of historic iron mines eventually abandoned in 1974.
The mine site covers several smaller concessions:
- Complemento
- El Conjuro
- La Última
- Oportunidad
- San Adolfo
- San Augusto
- Santa Elisa
- Virgen de las Angustias
It seems the site may have been operated in the time of the Moorish occupation of Spain, which could be any time from 711 and 1492. The site was then worked between 1895 and 1974.
It appears more recently some aggregates may have been extracted from the site, but this may be over now as the University of Grenada has supposedly purchased the site to study plant growth.
The site is known in Spanish as ‘Coto Minero El Conjuro’.
Mindat lists eight minerals from the site, and I suspect the rancieite and todorokite will be of most interest to collectors.
There is a good writeup of a visit to the site at the Foro-Minerales site linked below – it is Spanish but can be translated. A good writeup of the history of the site can be found at the La Alpujarra site too (again, in Spanish).
Further reading
- https://www.mindat.org/loc-24392.html
- http://mineexplorer.org.uk/el_conjuro.htm
- https://www.foro-minerales.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7887
- http://www.la-alpujarra.org/nieles/mineria/LAS%20MINAS%20DE%20EL%20CONJURO.pdf
If you are interested in other local specimens, we may have stock from the following locales:
Andalusia- Cala Mines, Cala, Huelva, Andalusia, Spain
- Cerro Minado Mines, Almería, Andalusia, Spain
- Cortijo de la mina, Conil de la Frontera, Cádiz, Andalusia, Spain
- Crater El Hoyazo, Níjar, Almería, Andalusia, Spain
- El Conjuro Mines, Busquístar, Granada, Andalusia, Spain
- Filón Sur open pit (Filón Sur Mine), Tharsis Mines, Tharsis, Alosno, Huelva, Andalusia, Spain
- La Encontrada Mine, Molvizar, Granada, Andalusia, Spain
- La Virgen Mine, Andújar, Jaén, Andalusia, Spain
- San Andrés Mine, Espiel, Córdoba, Andalusia, Spain
Alternately, try browsing by province: • Andalusia • Aragon • Asturias • Canary Islands • Cantabria • Castile-La Mancha • Castile and Leon • Catalonia • Extremadura • La Rioja • Murcia • Navarre • Valencia •
For the rest of our stock from the whole of Spain, see below.
Spain
Minerals from Spain