Large Azurite Crystal Cluster on Druzy Quartz - Morocco

Azurite is a copper carbonate hydroxide mineral that is best known for it's beautiful and vibrant blue appearance, Azurite typically forms in nodular formations with other colorful, copper rich minerals. Azurite is a secondary mineral that forms in pores, crevices, and caverns as water with high concentrations of carbon-dioxide precipitate.

Azurite and malachite are known to form in union with each other, for their chemical makeup is very similar. In fact, the presence of more or less water in the location of formation, is enough to determine whether an abundance of malachite over azurite, or vise-versa, will accumulate.

Silicon Dioxide, also known as SiO2 or Quartz, is the second most abundant mineral in the Earth's crust. Quartz crystals generally grow in silica-rich, hot watery solutions called hydrothermal environments, at temperatures between 100°C and 450°C, and usually under very high pressure. Quartz veins are formed when open fissures are filled with hot water during the closing stages of mountains forming, and can be hundreds of millions of years old.