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Generalturquoise in direct association of copper minerals

12th Apr 2015 16:38 UTCDave Owen

My question concerns turquoise in relation to copper minerals such as native copper, cuprite, malachite and azurite. Can turquoise be found in contact with these minerals? If so where ? Or is finding a specimen with a turquoise colored material with above mentioned minerals conformation that it is not turquoise? thanks

12th Apr 2015 18:39 UTCUwe Kolitsch Manager

"Or is finding a specimen with a turquoise colored material with above mentioned minerals conformation that it is not turquoise?"

In that case another possibility would be chrysocolla.

12th Apr 2015 19:35 UTCDave Owen

Uwe; Chrysocolla would be the most common I believe or a host of other like colored minerals. I am wondering specifically about turquoise from a turquoise cutters standpoint in regards to minerals being marketed as turquoise in association with the before mentioned minerals. Can it be assumed that a turquoise colored mineral with say cuprite or malachite is not turquoise or is it a posibility?

12th Apr 2015 19:38 UTCDavid Von Bargen Manager

Turquoise does not seem to be particularly common in gossans, but tends to be associated with clay rich veins. The chemistry in gossans would seem to favor the formation of minerals such as libethenite, and the phosphate is more likely to form pyromorphite.

A lot of the cutting material may actually be planerite and not turquoise. There was a recent discussion about that on the message board.

12th Apr 2015 22:36 UTCUwe Kolitsch Manager

"Can it be assumed that a turquoise colored mineral with say cuprite or malachite is not turquoise or is it a posibility? "

I wouldn't exclude it, but probable it's not.

19th Apr 2015 08:46 UTCRock Currier Expert

When we are confronted with a chunk of copper ore containing a mix of green and blue colored minerals we often wonder and speculate about what those minerals are. They may be well reasoned speculations but that does not mean they are correct. There is no easy way to know what the minerals are without analysis, sometimes extensive analysis. And even if you do the analysis on a piece from another locality will likely be different. And ultimately, when the cost of the analysis is more than the value of the specimen, the analyses are rarely if ever done. Does turquoise appear with other copper minerals? I would think so and most mineralogists would also answer yes, but to answer the question if it usually occurs with other copper minerals and with with which ones and to what extent would presume familiarity with many similar analyses and I would suspect that no one has ever done this. A good topic for a PhD thesis? Would a PhD even be granted for a study like this? If there were a reason to perform these analyses they would probably have been done and the results published.

Jewelers, gem cutters and the lapidary people have little interest in doing the analysis for these kinds of specimens, because the results, usually produce mineral names that can't be readily marked and sold to the public because they are names that the public doesn't know. So the usual procedure is to ignore any analysis, and make up a new name that is thought to have more sizzle sales wise. Therefore Tanzenite rather then Zoesite. The examples are endless. Do collectors, dealers and or curators have reason to do the analyses? Rarely they do, but they are usually rudimentary and rarely published. We have space here on Mindat to record those analyses but I don't know of one. Massive lapidary materials, like rocks containing mixed oxide copper minerals are poorly represented hare on mindat and analyses of them are even more rarely recorded. Even the localities that produce lapidary materials are not well recorded here on Mindat. I would hope that others will start recording this information if they have or encounter it. I know I do. "Angelite" is not a copper mineral but rather a variety of blue massive anhydrite found in southern Peru. Because of my business connections I managed to corner one of my suppliers into giving me some good locality information about the material that has been commonly collected and sold down by the ton in Peru for the last 50 years. I never had much interest in the stuff because it didn't form nice crystals. But I can guarantee you that many more people know this name angelite than know names like tetrahedrite and atacamiite, brochantite or cyanotrichite.

http://www.mindat.org/loc-264285.html

I hope to soon also be able to post pictures of the locality and the "mine". Ten out of the eleven pictures we have on file for Peruvian anhydrite are from this locality and I will soon have the job of going into our image database and "cleaning" them up. Ten out of the eleven images in our database are from this locality that someone (me) finally bothered to record.

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