Azurite (CAR-035)

specimen number:
9273131

location:
Malbunka, Northern Territory, Australia

description:

Beautiful bright blue disc of crystallized azurite 3.1 cm in diameter on a white kaolinite matrix. In excellent condition. The color contrast is wonderful.

The Malbunka copper mine, located in the Gardiner Range near Areyonga in the MacDonnell Region of the Northern Territory, Australia, is an underground specimen mine situated on land owned by the Malbunka Aboriginal clan. Geologically, the deposit is hosted within the 600-million-year-old Namatjira Formation, specifically occurring within a localized, flat-lying lens of white kaolin clay interbedded with sandstone, siltstone, and shale. The mineralization formed in a primary diagenetic setting where deep, copper-rich formation fluids moved upward through faults and mixed with shallow, carbonate-bearing groundwater, precipitating blue azurite as flattened, radial disks alongside minor malachite. Originally discovered in the late 1940s by Aboriginal prospector Albert Namatjira and initially known as Namatjira's Copper Prospect, the site was explored with a surface bench and a small underground adit by early miners up until the early 1970s. After a multi-decade period of inactivity, geologist Dehne McLaughlin acquired the mineral lease and resumed small-scale underground seasonal mining operations in 2008 to systematically extract the intact azurite formations from the kaolinite matrix.

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