Siderita
Siderita is a mineral with formula FeCO₃, in the Carbonatos group. This specimen comes from Coto Vivaldi, San Miguel de las Dueñas, León, Castilla y León, España.
Description
Siderite matrix with wine-red rhombohedral to lenticular crystals, revealing an interesting play of golden reflections under magnification.
History of this specimen
This was my first siderite. A stranger gave it to me in the mid-1980s, after spotting me and my father searching beneath the old storage hoppers at Coto Wagner, in San Miguel de las Dueñas. I was just a kid, fascinated by those abandoned structures. The man pulled a specimen from his pocket and said, «Here, this is what you’re looking for». I asked him what it was. «Siderite. Iron carbonate». I remember his unusual accent, and something he said about the place having once belonged to «the Germans». I cannot remember his exact words. He walked away, and I never saw him again.
About Siderita
A common iron carbonate in hydrothermal veins and, historically, an important ore of one of civilization’s most important metals.
About the locality
The president of Coto Vivaldi was Federico Lipperheide Wenke, a former SS agent, spy and tungsten agent during the war. The men responsible for preparing the mines were also members of the Nazi Party. Among them was its director, Friedrich Günter Adolph Honigmann Kirdorf, an engineer who took refuge in Spain after the war. Here he was known as «The German», or «Don Federico the German». He lived with his wife, Juana Boedding Haus Bayer, in a chalet near the sanctuary of the Virgen de la Peña. Both Coto Vivaldi and its sister mine, Wagner, had been named by the engineer Julio Lazúrtegui, the man commemorated in Ponferrada’s central square. He died in 1943 still insisting on the quality of the iron in these deposits, which would only finally be brought into production after the end of the Second World War.
Technical data
- Catalogue No.
- 0596
- Composition
- FeCO₃
- Name
- Siderita
- Group
- Carbonatos
- Matrix
- Pizarra
- Mine
- Coto Vivaldi
- District / Municipality
- San Miguel de las Dueñas
- Province
- León
- Region
- Castilla y León
- Country
- España
- Size (cm)
- 7 x 6 x 5
- Weight
- 98.2 g
- Etymology
- From the Greek 'sideros' (iron).
- Quality
- Buena
- Value trend
- Estable
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