Aurora vein, Caravia mining area, Asturias, Spaini

Regional Level Types
Aurora vein	Vein
Caravia mining area	Mining Area
Asturias	Autonomous Community
Spain	Country

The early investigation work on Fluorite in the Aurora vein area and in general in the Caravia area were made by Federico Otlet Dewolf, born in Belgium, who initially on his own in 1925 and later, in the beginning of the 1930’s, with Celestino Llaneza walked tirelessly the paths and hills of the area looking for the mineral, telling anybody who wanted to hear that “they were sleeping on a real gold mantle”, referring clearly to the mineral riches that the subsoil guarded. With the passage of time the exploration carried by several companies proved him right.

In 1938 the Spanish Civil War finished this stage of the operation and little after the entry of Franco’s army in Caravia in 1937 a key figure in fluorite mining in Asturias appeared, Ángel Pérez de Leza, who marked out, with the company “Importación de minerales SAE”, the concessions on which the rich Aurora vein lay. Later, in 1941, he founded the most important Spanish company, both for its economic resources and its operational capacity: Fluoruros S.A. The political components involved in setting-up and developing these companies are widely recorded.

This vein, which runs in a NW-SE orientation, was mined by two different companies: Fluoruros S.A. and Minas de Argüelles. Fluoruros extracted the mineral in a first stage using underground mining in Aurora Mine and Melfonso shaft, both located in the sourrondings of the Prado village, where even now the foundations of that shaft can be seen. Later, in the decade of the 1970’s, the mining of the northest area of the vein was started via an open pit called “Aurora Norte”. This open pit is popularly known by locals as “La Huerta de Argüelles” for it is located within an old farm owned by the Argüelles family. In order to exploit the deposit, the company Fluoruros had to move the ancestral home stone by stone to a new location close to Ribadesella because an mining inquiry was denied by the authorities. Nowadays this site is completely restored and many buildings lie on it, including the new church of Prado.

In the southest area of the vein another company worked owned by the Argüelles family whose head, Mr. Luis Argüelles, marked out five concessions close to La Forquita Peak between 1941 and 1942, among which was Mª de las Nieves nº 24362. From the latter, mineral was extracted through a shaft known as “Foncaravia” and from the Mª de las Nieves Mine located on the vein named as “Foncaravia vein”, which is the same “Aurora” vein owned by Fluoruros. The closure of these mining works began initially with Fluoruros in 1972. This company finished the mining from the Melfonso shaft because of problems connected with the flooding of the productive area. Three years later the company closed due to the exhaustion of the Aurora Norte open pit deposit. Later, in 1982, due to a mining accident in which five workers died, the last company operating this vein closed: “Hijos de Luis Argüelles”.

The paragenesis of this lode deposit is similar to that of the rest of the area, which is to say, fluorite, quartz, pyrite, baryte and some sulfides. The lovely fluorite on quartz specimens found in Aurora Norte open pit in the 70’s are actually remarkable. The association of complex cube-rhombododecahedron crystals with matchless transparency and luster puts them among the most beautiful crystals of this mineral found in the Principality of Asturias. There are outstanding specimens coming from the operation of this vein both in the Aurora Mine and in Foncaravia shaft, although underrepresented in private collections and museums.

Usually the color of the fluorite crystals varies from the deep violet of Aurora Mine and Melfonso shaft, going through the bluish lighter violet of Foncaravia shaft and Mª de las Nieves Mine area until reaching the absolute transparency of Aurora Norte open pit.

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