Azurite

specimen number:
2292162

location:
Malbunka Mine, Northern Territory, Australia

description:
Two circular crystal groupings of brilliant blue azurite, the largest 4.0 cm in diameter, on a white chalky kaolinite matrix. In great condition. Great color contrast makes this very pretty.

The Malbunka copper mine, located near Areyonga in the MacDonnell Ranges of the Northern Territory, Australia, is a small underground operation internationally famous for producing unique, disk-shaped azurite suns on a contrasting white matrix. Geologically, the deposit is hosted within the Cambrian-aged Devenport Formation, where flat-lying siltstone and kaolinitic clay layers contain bedding-plane fractures and solution cavities. Secondary copper-rich hydrothermal fluids infiltrated these porous, flat rock layers under high pressure, forcing the growth of radiating, highly flattened azurite disks along the horizontal bedding planes. Small-scale exploration at the site occurred intermittently in the late twentieth century, but formal mining specifically dedicated to specimen extraction commenced under private ownership in 2011. This specialized commercial hand-mining operation has run continuously on a seasonal basis for over a decade, utilizing careful underground tunneling methods to preserve the delicate mineral specimens for the international collector market into the 2020s.

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