Azurite

Azurite from Crowl Creek Mine, Shuttleton, New South Wales, Australia, measuring 70 × 48 × 35 mm and weighing 132 grams. The mine attribution gives this piece a distinct place among Australian Azurites. It is a useful reminder that the interest of a familiar mineral often lies in the individual locality represented by a particular specimen.

Azurite is a copper carbonate hydroxide associated with alteration in copper-bearing environments. It expresses copper chemistry in a different form from native Copper, oxides or sulphides. For a collector, that makes it part of a wider family of secondary copper minerals whose relationships can be explored through comparisons between carefully identified and well-localised examples.

Intense blue, angular mineral areas contrast with cream-grey matrix across the irregular piece. The blue is concentrated rather than evenly spread, giving the eye distinct points to explore. Those changes between mineral-rich areas and paler surroundings make the specimen especially enjoyable at close range, where individual faces and small recesses become easier to distinguish. This example comes from the David Vince Collection. Its recorded origin and provenance give it a clear identity within a larger Australian copper-mineral display. The pleasure of building such a collection is often in following a familiar species into less frequently discussed localities, where each specimen adds another geographical point and another piece of collecting history to the wider picture.