AZURITE WITH MALACHITE

ABOUT THE SPECIMEN

Great cluster of well-formed, lustrous azurite from the renowned locality. The crystal formation goes all along the top uninterrupted, and the sides show a combination of dickite matrix and azurite beginning to replace the lower layers of azurite. As is expected, the larger crystals are darker in hue, yet show brilliant blue flashes from a variety of angles.

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The Milpillas deposit is a Laramide porphyry copper system emplaced around 63.9 Ma in the Cananea district, subsequently oxidized to produce copper carbonates in the upper 200 meters. Mining began in 2006 after the deposit was discovered in 1978, buried beneath 250 meters of Cenozoic gravels that preserved the oxidation zone from erosion. The azurite specimens produced from 2007-2015 are distinguished by electric blue coloration, exceptional luster, and crystals reaching up to 15 cm in elongated diamond-shaped habits. The famous "watercourse pocket" or "tunnel pocket" find around 2015 yielded plates with brilliant crystals to 4 cm, many as near-floaters on white dickite or clay matrix. What makes Milpillas historically significant is the sheer volume and quality—it produced more world-class azurite in a decade than most localities yield in a century, rivaling Bisbee and Tsumeb. The mine transitioned to chalcocite-dominant sulfide ores in 2015, effectively ending specimen production. The combination of size, color saturation, and crystallographic perfection established Milpillas azurites as the modern standard for the species.