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[Jean Sendero]

Any one can help me with this locality?

Basically where is it?
Does it go under a different name? Is it San Martin or Las Sabinas or neither?
Who operates it?

Panczner refers to this mine has being closed for 50 years and likely to be re-open in the 80's. Was it re-open under a different name?

Thanks

Jean

[Peter Megaw]

Mina La Noria is the long abandoned part of what has been the Sabinas Mine since the 1970s. The Noria shaft is 1 km NW of the Sabinas Ramp and Shaft through which Penoles currently mines the San Martin-Sabinas skarn orebody. Penoles bought the Sabinas Mine from the Ahnert family in the late 1990s and has been mining their half of the skarn body ever since. The La Noria Vein was the main high-grade structure that cut through the principal skarn orebody and brought in the metals rich fluids that mineralized the skarn. It was traced from outcrop where the Spaniards mined some of the richest silver ores in Colonial history outside of Batopilas back into the San Martin-Sabinas skarn orebody.

Dan Belsher (Blue Sky Minerals) put "La Noria Mine, San Pantaleon de la Noria" on his labels, which is historically and geologically incorrect unless the specimen came out before the early 1970s when the Noria Shaft flooded. Nothing has come from La Noria since.

The boundary between the Sabinas (Penoles) and San Martin (Grupo Mexico) properties is a complex dovetailing that cuts across the western third of the overall skarn body. The orebody and minerals that come from it are identical regardless of which minie they come out of. However, San Martin has been closed for over 3 years, so anything recent...like the pink apophyllites and yellow stilbites is definitely from Sabinas. In addition, San Martin mined much deeper than Sabinas has reached, so materials typical of the upper parts of San Martin that came out 25 years ago...like stibnite..long since ceased coming from San Martin but still come from Sabinas. The silver in bornite, fluorites, and calcites come from throughout the orebody so unless you know the time of extraction or the miner who brought them out (or at least the company he works for) there is no way to determine which mine.

The "town" of La Noria de Pantaleon is long abandoned. When I mapped this district a watchman lived in the only occupied dwelling. I believe a couple of the upper mine staff have houses there now, but it hardly qualifies as a town. The village of San Martin lies just below that mine and would be the closest population center worthy of naming.

Failing specific knowledge of time or mine, I would recommend that specimens be labeled as below.

San Martin-Sabinas District, San Martin, Municipio Sombrerete, Zacatecas, Mexico

i strongly recommend correcting any label that says La Noria or San Pantaleon de la Noria unless you know the specimen came out prior to 1975. This would include all labels from Blue Sky Mining and subsequent relabelings by Dave Bunk.

I can make a similar argument about why all labels saying "San Antonio El Grande Mine" for specimens from Santa Eulalia should be changed to San Antonio Mine or Mina San Antonio. The government topographic maps call the village there San Antonio el Grande, but the neither the mine nor the village have ever actually been named that.

[Jean Sendero]

Thank you Peter,

excellent information and clarification.

Love the fluorite.

Cheers

Jean