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  • A mineral specimen featuring bright green cuprian adamite crystals nestled within symmetrical vugs (cavities) in red-brown host rock. Well-formed white calcite crystals are visible to one side. The reverse side displays more elongated, subtly-colored cuprian austinite crystals. The overall banding pattern of the crystal-filled pockets creates a symmetrical appearance across the specimen.
  • A mineral specimen featuring bright green cuprian adamite crystals nestled within symmetrical vugs (cavities) in red-brown host rock. Well-formed white calcite crystals are visible to one side. The reverse side displays more elongated, subtly-colored cuprian austinite crystals. The overall banding pattern of the crystal-filled pockets creates a symmetrical appearance across the specimen.
  • A mineral specimen featuring bright green cuprian adamite crystals nestled within symmetrical vugs (cavities) in red-brown host rock. Well-formed white calcite crystals are visible to one side. The reverse side displays more elongated, subtly-colored cuprian austinite crystals. The overall banding pattern of the crystal-filled pockets creates a symmetrical appearance across the specimen.
  • A mineral specimen featuring bright green cuprian adamite crystals nestled within symmetrical vugs (cavities) in red-brown host rock. Well-formed white calcite crystals are visible to one side. The reverse side displays more elongated, subtly-colored cuprian austinite crystals. The overall banding pattern of the crystal-filled pockets creates a symmetrical appearance across the specimen.

CUPRIAN ADAMITE & AUSTINITE

Ojuela Mine, Mapimí, Durango, México
10.6 x 6 x 8.5 cm
$150.00
$150.00
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ABOUT THE SPECIMEN

Set within red-brown host rock, multiple vugs are filled in with a rich covering of bright green cuprian adamite, as well as some well-crystallized calcite to the side. The banding of these pockets run in a way that appears very symmetrical. Both sides of the piece display well, with the back also displaying crystals of cuprian austinite with a subtle color and more elongated habit.

 

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MORE INFO

Ojuela is a complex of multiple interconnected workings northwest of Mapimí exploiting a thoroughly oxidized Pb-Zn ore body in which over 350 years of mining from the Spanish Colonial period through 1932 consumed virtually all primary sulfides - the resulting oxidation zone is one of the most mineralogically diverse in the Western Hemisphere, with 117 confirmed species. Cuprian adamite occupies the zinc arsenate hydroxide structure with copper substituting for zinc, the degree of substitution driving color from the pale yellow-green of low copper content through saturated mint to deep emerald; manganese substitution produces the rarer purple-violet variety. Crystals typically form in fan-shaped to hemispherical radial aggregates within iron-stained limonite vugs, and strong lemon-yellow fluorescence and phosphorescence under both longwave and shortwave UV is an intrinsic property of the species. The 1946 Dan Mayers and Francis Wise discovery of a lime-green botryoidal adamite grotto effectively introduced Ojuela to the collector world; since then, a miner's cooperative has worked the galleries daily on a specimen-only basis, surfacing hundreds of pounds of material at a time with occasional large pocket strikes. The mine remains the undisputed world standard for the species across all its color varieties, and periodic major finds have kept supply present without ever becoming truly abundant.