2.2" Light Green Malachite on Limonite Encrusted Quartz - Morocco

M’Ssici, also recorded as Mecissi or M’Cissi, is a mineral locality in the Alnif area of Tinghir Province, within Morocco’s Drâa-Tafilalet Region. It produces striking combinations of quartz encrusted with deep blue azurite, rich green malachite, and earthy limonite. These coatings can partially cover the quartz or almost entirely conceal its surfaces, preserving the underlying crystal shapes beneath a colorful mosaic of secondary minerals.

Azurite occurs as small, flattened crystals that gather into sparkling crusts, rosettes, and occasionally stalactitic aggregates, while malachite adds rounded growths and fine crystalline coatings. The limonite, an informal term for mixtures of iron oxides and hydroxides, provides a warm, rusty brown backdrop that accentuates the blue and green copper minerals. Together, these contrasting colors and textures give specimens from M’Ssici a distinctive, richly layered appearance.