Geosite · Pardos
Pardos mines: Mina Estrella and its copper minerals
The Pardos mines are old copper and silver workings on the Majadillas hill, about 4 km southwest of the village. The best known, Mina Estrella, was worked from the 17th century to the mid-19th century. Now abandoned, it is known among mineral collectors for azurite, malachite, and rare species found in its spoil heaps.
This place across time
Which eras you can read here
A single place can preserve traces from different eras. These layers connect what you see with the stories in the atlas.
- Municipality
- Pardos
- Province
- Guadalajara
- Altitude
- 1,306 m
- Copper and silver
- 17th-19th centuries
- Azurita and malachite
- Geosite of interest
Copper on the high plain
South of Pardos, on Las Majadillas hill, open the entrances of historic mines. The principal one is Mina Estrella, also called La Platilla, which worked a copper and silver deposit between the 17th century and the mid-19th century, its period of greatest output.
A mineral museum
The ore fills breccias created by ancient faults in Carboniferous and Permian rocks. As original sulphides weathered, they produced a suite of colourful minerals that made the mine famous among collectors: deep blue azurite, green malachite, and rare species like bayldonite, mimetite, and olivenite. The Spanish Geological Survey lists it among the geosites of interest in Spain.
Visit with care
The workings are abandoned and the galleries are not safe. The mining landscape can be viewed from the outside; do not enter shafts or collect samples heavily.
Location
● Reference point · ● Villages · ● Places
Location diagram. Detailed map with tracks and names loads on zoom.
Reference villages: Herreria · Pardos · Canales de Molina · Torrubia.
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