Azurite with Malachite

specimen number:
9506355

location:
Khanong open pit, Sepon Mine, Vilabouly, Savannakhet, Laos

description:

Superb lustrous large blue bladed crystals of azurite measuring to 3.0 cm signs across the top of this matrix minor malachite. Some contacting is present as seen, this is in great condition.

The Khanong open pit, part of the Sepon Mine located in Vilabouly District, Savannakhet Province, Laos, is an active modern mining operation that commenced copper production in March 2005 (following initial modern district discoveries in the 1990s and extensive historical and pre-modern copper extraction dating back over 2,000 years to the Iron Age). Geologically, the deposit sits within the Truongson Fold Belt and is hosted by shallow-dipping, highly sheared Paleozoic carbonate and calcareous sedimentary rocks. Khanong is specifically renowned as a high-grade supergene-enriched and carbonate-replacement copper deposit, where hypogene semi-massive sulfides underwent intense tropical weathering, leaching, and supergene remobilization to form a rich mineral assemblage of chalcocite, malachite, azurite, cuprite, and native copper overlying an impermeable dolomite unit.

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