Chrysocolla with Quartz

specimen number:
8311504

location:
Ray Mine, Pinal Co., Arizona, USA

description:

A neat stalactite or stalagmite of chrysocolla, this with micro crystalline quartz. In great condition, this is classic material for this famous locality.

The Ray mine, situated within the Mineral Creek mining district near Kearny in Pinal County, Arizona, United States, is a historically monumental open-pit copper operation globally recognized for its massive production of base metals and native copper, chrysocolla, and cuprite. Geologically, this deposit is classified as a classic Laramide-age porphyry copper system, where a series of Paleocene-age quartz monzonite and granodiorite porphyry stocks intruded into Precambrian-age Ruin Granite and Pinal Schist host rocks around 60 million years ago. Intense hydrothermal alteration fractured the host complex, creating an extensive hypogene sulfide stockwork that subsequently underwent profound supergene enrichment during the Tertiary period, creating a thick, blanket-like zone of high-grade chalcocite beneath a leached capping of secondary copper silicates, carbonates, and oxides. Historically, underground development began in 1880 under the Ray Copper Company, but large-scale modern industrial exploitation truly expanded in 1911 when the Ray Consolidated Copper Company introduced mechanized block-caving methods, which ultimately transitioned into a massive, unified open-pit quarrying operation in 1948 to maximize efficiency. The facility ran continuously through the mid-to-late twentieth century under the ownership of Kennecott and later ASARCO, systematically swallowing the historical townsites of Ray and Barcelona as the pit widened into one of the largest copper excavations in North America. Through 2026, the Ray mine remains fully operational under ASARCO (Grupo Mexico), utilizing massive modern haulage fleets, an on-site concentrator, and a solvent extraction-electrowinning plant to produce tens of thousands of tons of cathode copper annually, serving as a vital industrial anchor and an academic reference for porphyry supergene enrichment models.

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