Azurite

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This Morenci mine Azurite is so full of character, presenting amazing 'rosettes' of deep blue crystals densely coating a contrasting pale cream coloured matrix. The surface of the Azurite glistens with a fine 'wet' resinous lustre. Morenci mine is one of the most famous localities for fine crystallized Azurite specimens in Arizona, and there are a lot of localities. There has been a mine at Morenci since 1871, when the underground Longfellow mine went into production, with open pit mining commencing in 1937 and continuing today in a vast open hole in the ground with an annual production of around 300,000 tons of copper metal. There have been some really fine crystallized specimens of Azurite, but of those, this rosetted habit of clustered small bladed crystals is one of the rarest and most beautiful. Exceptionally reaching 1 cm in diameter, the rosettes on this stunning display specimen almost completely line a concave vug, but these crystals continue through fissures into further smaller pockets on the back. Remarkably, there is almost no damage of note to these lovely crystal clusters and size-wise this is a seriously impressive display of this wonderful form of Azurite from Morenci.