Arsenopyrite from the Panasqueira mine is one of our Top 100 Minerals.
For much of the 1970s and 1980s, the Panasqueira mine was one of the leading producers of tungsten in the world. Currently the Chinese deposits are the world leaders. Although the deposit was known in the very late nineteenth century and a fair amount of work had been done, the mine did not begin steady production until 1934. As is the case with many large deposits that were worked over 100 years ago, when many small operations might have started their own mines on the same ore body and eventually amalgamated into larger scale operations, the Panasqueira mine is in fact a conglomeration of several smaller mines. All of the underground workings are now interconnected. Declining metal prices and competition from China will soon force this mine, and world-class specimen locality, to close.
Although a tungsten mine, the Panasqueira mine is world-famous for many very fine specimens of arsenopyrite, ferberite, cassiterite, siderite, quartz, muscovite and fluorapatite.
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Apatite on Muscovite
Panasqueira Mines, Covilha, Castelo Branco, Portugal
