Azurite

specimen number:
2262049

location:
Shilu Mine, Yangchun Co., Yangjiang, Guangdong, China

description:
A wonderful cluster of deep blue sharp blocky azurite crystals with no points of attachment. Complete all around, this is in really good condition. Classic Chinese material, this is an old one.

The Shilu Mine, located in Yangchun County, Guangdong Province, China, is one of the world's premier localities for crystallized azurite. Geologically, it is a massive copper-iron skarn deposit formed by the intrusion of Mesozoic granodiorite into Paleozoic carbonate rocks, particularly limestone. The site is famous for its secondary oxidation zone, which produced extraordinary specimens of azurite as deep "royal blue" tabular crystals, often forming aesthetic rosettes or associated with velvety green malachite. Historically, while the region has a long history of small-scale mining dating back centuries, modern industrial operations and significant mineral specimen recovery occurred primarily between the 1960s and the early 2000s. The mine was worked for both copper and iron ore, but it gained international acclaim in the 1980s and 1990s as high-quality specimens began appearing in the global market. Today, many of the most productive specimen pockets are exhausted or inaccessible due to the transition to large-scale mining and changing site conditions, yet Shilu remains a benchmark locality for Chinese secondary copper minerals.

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