Apachite (incredibly rare)

Item Description

Here we have an incredibly hard to find specimen from the famed Christmas Mine in Arizona featuring Apachite, a ridiculously rare hydrated copper silicate that is only found in three places in the world. Apachite was named in honor of the native Apache tribe that lived in the area. The Christmas Mine is the type locality for the species. This piece was mined in the late 1970s and features a medium blue patch of Apachite on matrix. The reverse side of the piece features more pale blue patches of Apachite. It's certainly a micro specimen, and we have photographed the specimen with a Canon MP-E 65 mm macro lens to better illustrate the quality and enhance the detail.
From the worldwide collection of David Burgess (1951-2016). David was a prolific species collector from Newington, Connecticut, and the namesake for the extremely rare cobalt arsenate species Burgessite, which he discovered.