Azurite

A specimen showing deep blue azurite smears coating a pale dolostone vein from the Gortdrum Mine, Monard, County Tipperary, Ireland. The azurite occurs as rich blue coatings and patches across the surface of the carbonate vein material. Although not crystallized, the vivid colour and natural distribution of the azurite provide an attractive representation of the secondary copper mineralization from this locality.

The Gortdrum Mine was an open-cast copper operation discovered in 1963 and worked from 1967 to 1975. The deposit is notable for its unusual mineralogy and is the only mine in the British Isles to have produced mercury, recovered mainly from mercurian tennantite within the ore. The locality has also yielded cinnabar crystals, rare species such as gortdrumite, and excellent examples of secondary copper minerals including tyrolite, azurite, and malachite formed through the weathering of the primary sulphide mineralization. Specimens such as this illustrate the diverse alteration products associated with this unusual Irish copper deposit.