Cuprite

specimen number:
9506413

location:
Milpillas Mine, Cuitaca, Santa Cruz, Sonora, Mexico

description:

A wonderful large cabinet example for the species from this Mexican locality. Brilliant lustrous deep red octahedral crystals of cuprite measuring to 1.0 cm in size are mostly covering the top of this matrix. This is in super condition.

The Milpillas Mine, located in the Cuitaca area of Sonora, Mexico, is a modern copper mine that has become legendary for producing some of the finest secondary copper minerals in the world. Geologically, it is a high-grade porphyry copper deposit where the primary mineralization is buried under several hundred meters of gravel and volcanic rocks. The exceptional specimens found there formed in a deep, protected oxidation zone where circulating groundwater transformed primary copper sulfides into spectacular secondary minerals like azurite, malachite, and cuprite. The cuprite from Milpillas is particularly famous for its deep red color and high luster, often appearing as sharp octahedral crystals or as the variety known as chalcotrichite. Historically, the mine is relatively young, with construction beginning in the early 2000s and commercial production starting in 2006 under the operation of Industrias Penoles. Despite being a modern industrial facility designed for copper cathode production, the mine gained immediate fame in the mineralogical community for the brief but extraordinary pockets of world-class crystals encountered during its main years of underground development.

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