Azurite
Milpillas Mine, Cuitaca
Sonora, Mexico
.75" x .75" x .5"

Lovely deep blue Azurite crystal from Milpillas! Great specimen at every angle - the crystal faces are smooth and rounded. Nice, neat composition and great lustre. Good compliment stone for any case.


About the location (source: mindat . org )

Geology: The district lies within the NW‐SE trending metallogenic Laramidian (late Cretaceous to Eocene) copper belt of Southwest North America which extends from Sonora over Arizona to New Mexico. The Milpillas deposit, located in an extensional zone called Cuitaca Graben, is a partially oxidized porphyry copper deposit with a series of alternating copper carbonate-oxide and chalcocite enrichment blankets on top of low grade primary chalcopyrite-bornite mineralization. Mineralization is covered by 250 meters of gravels and extends to 720 meters depth. Most of the copper carbonate oxide ores occur in the top 200 meters of the deposit. Host rocks are volcaniclastic from the Jurassic Henrietta formation and the Laramide Mesa formation in which monzonitic to quartzmonzonitic stocks intrude. The sercitically altered stocks and the intruded volcaniclastic rocks host the main copper mineralization.