the.com/chrysocolla
the blue-green stone so soft it pretends to be malachite, turquoise, or whatever sells better
means A soft, bluish-green copper silicate mineral, often used as a minor ornamental stone or pigment and easily confused with malachite or turquoise.
from From Greek 'chrysos' (gold) and 'kolla' (glue), because the ancients used a similar substance as a solder or flux for working gold — Theophrastus and Pliny both wrote of a green material under this name. The label later drifted onto our copper-rich mineral, so today 'chrysocolla' literally means 'gold-glue,' a name describing a job it no longer does.
- name origin
- Greek for gold glue, used soldering gold
- gem traitor
- too soft to cut alone, needs quartz backup
- copper baby
- forms where copper ore slowly weathers away
- famous fan
- named by Theophrastus, Aristotle's botanist successor
- color thief
- impostor sold as turquoise to unwary buyers
morenci mine arizona — world's largest chrysocolla deposit, producing bright blue-green specimens since 1882
chuquicamata chile — massive open-pit copper mine that yields significant chrysocolla as a secondary copper mineral
bisbee arizona specimens — historic mining district famous for exceptional chrysocolla crystals and azurite-malachite associations