Djebel Hammimat Mine, Aïn Babouche, Ain Babouche District, Oum el Bouaghi Province, Algeria (original) (raw)

Djebel Hammimat Mine, Aïn Babouche, Ain Babouche District, Oum el Bouaghi Province, Algeriai

Latitude & Longitude (WGS84):

35° 58' 46'' North , 7° 10' 42'' East

Latitude & Longitude (decimal):

Deposit first discovered:

1845

Long-form identifier:

mindat:1:2:25:6

14333542-62e5-4bf5-9b37-e7c1bbe20f28

Other/historical names associated with this locality:

Djebel Haminate Mine

Name(s) in local language(s):

Djebel Hammimat

Discovered in 1845, the Djebel Hammimat Mine (not Haminate) was the first antimony deposit worked in Algeria.

The mine is located 90 km SW of Constantine and has been worked until the middle of the 20th century.

Djebel Hammimat is the type locality for senarmontite, antimony oxide dimorph of valentinite. Senarmontite was the main part of the ore.

Djebel Hammimat housed the largest deposit of antimony in Algeria in the nineteenth century, granted in concession, which consisted of white, glassy antimony oxide in a marly rock nearly 2 kilometres in length. A second deposit of antimony was located a few kilometres away, at Djebel es Sennsa, also called "Djebel Senza" or "Djebel-Sensa" before the Evian Accords, when the village of Aïn Babouche was called "Aïn-Bel-bouck".

The mines of Djebel Hammimat produced up to about 3,000 tonnes of senarmontite, an antimonious acid crystallized in the form of octahedra and small cubes, discovered by Henri Hureau de Sénarmont (1808-1862).

Schematically, the range of antimony deposits in the Guelma-Constantine region in Algeria includes:

— senarmontite in the Djebel Hammimat,
— valentinite in the nearby Djebel Senza,
— stibnite in the Jebel Taya,
— nadorite in the Nador mine N'Baïls, in Djebel Nador, and
— cervantite in Aïn Kerma, now Messaoud Boudjriou1.

The Djebel Hammimat antimony deposit was taken over around 1911 by the Société des Mines de Rarbou et Sakamody, financially supported by the Beer, Sondheimer et Cie bank, based in Frankfurt. During the war, this link with the Germans and the exhaustion of the deposit meant that the mine was sequestered.

The outcrop, which initially showed only small crystals on the surface, then improved in depth. From 1862, extraction represented 1,090 tonnes of antimony per year. Oxidized ore from the Hammimat mine sold on average 300 francs per ton (period values), from 1876 to 1880. In France, the production was mainly used in the manufacture of "antimony white" pigment.

In 1880 the creation of the "Société anonyme des Mines d'Hamimate" was decided. At the time, there were only two mines of antimony oxide in the world in a state of serious exploitation: one in Australia and Djebel Hammimat in Algeria. The latter was temporarily abandoned in 1897. A revival of the extraction was attempted in 1903 and 1904, but the results were unsatisfactory. It was then taken over by a German company, whose assets were placed in receivership at the end of the First World War. They were then attributed to the Compagnie des mines de La Lucette, which took over the extraction and developed it.

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7 valid minerals. 1 (TL) - type locality of valid minerals.

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• **Atlas Mountains**Orogenic Belt

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