
Image Credit: Malcolm Southwood

Image Credit: Malcolm Southwood

Image Credit: Malcolm Southwood



Specimen Title
Azurite
Associated Minerals
cerussite; malachite; smithsonite
Principal Mineral
Size
Cabinet; 59mm
Location in the Mine
First oxidation zone
Provenance
Palache, C.
Collection
MGMH; 87490
Entry Number
Specimen; TSNB684
Associated Minerals
cerussite; malachite; smithsonite
Description
Equant crystals of blue-black azurite (to 12 mm), intergrown and generally pristine, but with one crystal (Exhibit 2) quite extensively altered to malachite. The matrix is mineralised feldspathic sandstone, the display face of which is encrusted with sharp, but tightly intergrown sub-mm rhombs of smithsonite on which sparse colourless cerussite crystals (to 3 mm) have also formed (Exhibit 3).
This specimen is figured in the azurite monograph of Palache and Lewis (1927) as their Figure 12 (in Plate II), which included both a monochrome photograph of one of the crystals and a line drawing to illustrate their "Type 6" habit described as: "Essentially equant parallel to a, b and c axes. Dominant m (110), a (100), 𝜎 (101), 𝜃 (-101), c (001)."
The specimen is from the collection purchased by Charles Palache during his visit to Tsumeb in April 1922, which dates it to the upper part of the first oxidation zone (i.e. 8 Level or above).