Monte Valerio, Campiglia Marittima, Livorno Province, Tuscany, Italyi

Regional Level Types
Monte Valerio	Mountain
Campiglia Marittima	Commune
Livorno Province	Province
Tuscany	Region
Italy	Country

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Sn-W-As-Bi deposit at Monte Valerio, about 1.5 km SW of Campiglia Marittima.

The primary ore deposit, which contains cassiterite, pyrite, arsenopyrite, scheelite, and bismuthinite, is part of a Sn-W-As-Bi belt (Monte Valerio-Santa Caterina-Campo alle Buche) located along the western side of the buried monzogranite intrusion of Botro ai Marmi. Several arsenates have also been discovered within the oxidised ore portions.

To the east of Monte Valerio proper, on the western flank of the hill known as Monte Fumacchio, several narrow and labyrinthic tunnels were anciently dug in limestone, apparently to follow masses of iron hydroxides. These tunnels were known in the 19th century as the "Cento Camerelle" (i.e. "Hundred Rooms"). In the second half of the 19th century, the British company Hollway tried to newly exploit the iron ore. In 1875 the mining engineer Frèdèric Blanchard observed that some of the exploited ore was unusually heavy and sent it to the laboratory for chemical analyses. The greyish-green to black ore proved to be pure cassiterite, admixed with minor iron hydroxides. Other occurrences of cassiterite in association with "limonite" were discovered eastwards, at Cavina, and westwards on Monte Valerio proper. The high-grade cassiterite deposit (up to 70 wt.% of Sn), discovered by Blanchard in the area of the ancient excavations (Cento Camerelle-Cavina), was exploited for only a few years, due to its small overall size. But it was just the near-surface expression of the large low-grade deposit of Monte Valerio (ca. 0.4 wt.% of Sn), intensively exploited until 1946. During the autarkic period (the 1930s and '40s), the company Società Stagno Italiana di Monte Valerio, belonging to the state-owned mining enterprise AMMI (Aziende Minerarie Metalli Italiani), exploited both the eastern (Cento Camerelle-Cavina-Discenderia Dux workings) and the western (Santa Barbara stope and Pozzo 2) sectors of the tin deposit. Mining operations definitively ceased in 1948.

Although most of the ancient (Etruscan?) workings, named Cento Camerelle in the 19th century, were destroyed by the works performed in the 1930s and 1940s, some parts remained visible until the end of the 1950s. Later, as a consequence of limestone quarrying, carried out by the company Sales on all of the southern slope of Monte Valerio, the Cento Camerelle remnants have been almost completely erased, as well as most of the workings performed during the autarkic period.

Mineral List

25 valid minerals.