Jalisco’s obsidian: Once worth more than gold, today sells for 1 peso a kilo
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- Published on Friday, 18 October 2013 14:26
- Written by John Pint
A few years ago, I received an email from a very talented craftsman in Germany. He was looking for large pieces of high-grade obsidian which he planned to shape into giant black balls about a meter in diameter. “Can I find what I need in Jalisco?” he asked.
Jalisco has the fourth largest obsidian deposits in the world, so I figured he was looking in the right place. However, when I posed the question to several geologists, they told me they had never seen such large pieces of the volcanic glass in this part of Mexico … nor anywhere else.
Years passed. Then, a few days ago, I got a message from Justus Mohl, one of those geologists I had contacted. “I know you are interested in everything about obsidian,” he said. “Maybe you’d like to take a look at a mine with the biggest chunks of it I’ve ever seen.”