Tafone Mine, Manciano, Grosseto Province, Tuscany, Italyi

Regional Level Types
Tafone Mine	Mine (Abandoned)
Manciano	Commune
Grosseto Province	Province
Tuscany	Region
Italy	- not defined -

Abandoned Sb mine in the little valley of Fosso del Tafone. This Sb deposit differs from all other Tuscan antimony deposits because the stibnite mineralization is situated in a reducing environment below the water table; consequently, the secondary Sb minerals of the oxidation zone are lacking.

During the last years, minerals have been collected from mine dumps and slag dumps of the melting plant.

The first find of chapmanite in Italy was reported from the Southern stope (Tafone Sud) as olive-green crusts and concretions up to 1 cm in thickness (Dessau et al., 1972). The presence of chapmanite at the Northern stope (Tafone Nord) was later recorded (Braga, 1980).

Rosiaite and clinocervantite were collected only in slags of the ore processing plant, as well as bindheimite, cetineite, gaylussite, mopungite, senarmontite, tripuhyite, and valentinite. In the last years of the processing activity, the melting plant used not only Tuscan ores (from Tafone, Pereta, and Montauto mines) but also Sb ore from China, which contained Sn minerals as impurity phases (resulting in the formation of cassiterite in slags).

Revised coordinates refer to the mine buildings (smelter plant, located between the Northern Stope (now a lake – the Lago del Tafone) and the Southern stope).

HISTORY:

In the second half of the 19th century, the mining of the deposits in the Tafone creek began, from which mainly antimony was extracted. The company AMMI S.p.A. has been active since 1949. The company took an interest in the deposits in the area, commissioning the geologist Gabor Dessau to carry out a series of preparatory studies for mineral exploitation.

At the end of the 1960s, AMMI S.p.A. begins the industrial cultivation of the two identified deposits : the northern one – which has now become a lake – and the southern one. The main companies responsible for the mine over time (all part of the ENI group) are the following:

1967 - AMMI S.p.A.
1979 – SAMIM S.p.A.
1987 – SAMETON S.p.A.
1989 – SNAM S.p.A.
1993 – Nuova Solmine S.p.A.
1993 – Mineraria Campiano S.p.A.
1993 – Secoto
2002 – EniChem S.p.A. (now Syndial)

The extraction of the mineral ended in 1989, but the treatment plants continued to operate, using minerals from other sites, until 2001. Part of the cultivation area was subsequently used as a municipal waste landfill until 2012.

Other Regions, Features and Areas containing this locality

References