Azurite with Malachite

specimen number:
2292186

location:
NW Extension, 4950 level, Morenci Mine, Greenlee Co., Arizona, USA

description:
Attractive combination specimen with crystallized green malachite across the top of a crystallized blue azurite matrix. In good condition. Collected in the early 1990s.

The Morenci mine, located in Greenlee County, Arizona, is one of the largest open-pit copper mining complexes in North America, with the Northwest Extension 4950 level representing a specific operational bench within the expanded pit workings. Geologically, the deposit is a major Laramide-age porphyry copper-molybdenum system associated with a Paleocene to Eocene quartz monzonite porphyry stock that intruded Precambrian granites and Paleozoic sedimentary sequences. Intense fracturing and subsequent deep supergene weathering created a rich secondary oxidation zone, where copper-bearing fluids precipitated localized pockets of azurite, malachite, and chrysocolla along fractures and joint planes at specific elevations like the 4950 level. While mining in the Copper Mountain district began with underground operations in the 1870s, large-scale open-pit quarrying commenced in 1937, with modern mechanized extraction and bench development in the Northwest Extension progressing through the late twentieth century and continuing under corporate operations into the 2020s.

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