Any idea what the teal needles could be? My best guess is its a Chrysocolla pseudomorph of some sort, but I’m not sure. It has quite a bit of shattuckite on the other side, if that helps. I can’t remember for sure where I got it, but I pulled it out of storage with some other shattuckite that I know I got from the Ojuela mine in Mexico so I think its likely from there as well. Thanks for any ideas!
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Hi Christina,
First! WOW! Love the image and jealous of your photography skills! 
Is the shattuckite the botryoidal blue / white crystals on the right side of the specimen? They look kind of like smithsonite. But I agree, it does look like Chrysocolla.
Fantastic image and amazing specimen!
Cheers!
Troy
Hi Troy,
Yes, the botryoidal crystals are Shattuckite. They are a pale blue on the outside, but the broken open ones are dark blue inside. Here’s a picture of that side.
All you need for good photos is a light box! I got one pretty cheap on Amazon years ago and its a real game changer for photographing specimens.
Thanks for your input!
Christina
First, fantastic photo!! It helps so much to be able to see everything in focus, well lit, and in high resolution. It’s also always helpful to see the matrix too! On the off chance that you don’t already know about mindat.org, it’s a fantastic resource for all things mineral/mining related. You can go to specific mines, area, cities, countries & continents and see what they mine there, often with pictures from that location included!
Anyway, I looked at the Ojuela mine on there. (www.mindat.org/loc-2318.html) I see some of the things you have on your specimen in that list. The thing is though, any of the 4 of 5 thing I’m thinking of can look like any of the minerals on the specimen you have. The other thing tripping me up is that Ojuela doesn’t have shattuckite to my knowledge, but it does mine copper, so it’s entirely possible. It could be any combination of smithsonite, rosasite, hemimorphite, aurichalcite, or chrysocolla. They also have adamite in Ojuela which can be both green and blue (and many other colors). An easy way to confirm or eliminate that is to take a blacklight to it since adamite loves to fluoresce.
After looking through it all and comparing etc. I feel like it’s primarily chrysocolla. The light blue bots seem more like hemimorphite or aurichalcite than shattuckite to me. I’ve never really seen shattuckite be that light of a blue, it’s usually more close to the azurite blue color. And I really don’t think it’s smithsonite since it usually has more shiny/smooth lustre, and it usually is transparent or opaque rather than having color zoning like those have inside, hemimorphite and aurichalcite do have that gradient/color zoning however. The green is the bigger mystery to me. I’m thinking possibly conichalcite.
Hard to tell for sure. Fluorescence would be a big help if you have access to a UV light, ideally one with a blue light filter, but any 365nm UV light will work to at least confirm or eliminate the most fluorescent lil’ feller’s.
Hi Joel,
Thanks for your input! The blue is definitely Shattuckite. I have bought lots of Shattuckite from Ojuela and the color can range from dark to light blue, depending on the quality. Most of the pictures you see online are of the highest quality stuff, which is always darker blue and more fuzzy looking. I don’t know why Mindat wouldn’t have it listed, but I have bought directly from the miners at shows for many years now and also other websites mention Shattuckite from Ojuela so it must just be an oversite.
The only reason I’m uncertain about the chrysocolla is that it is very rare (though not unheard of) for it to form in needles. And, all the needles I have seen in person or been able to find pictures of seem to be shorter and stubbier than these. My gut feeling is that its Chrysocolla that has pseudomorphed another crystal. I was just hoping that maybe someone here would know for sure. I am a seller, so I don’t love not being able to tell people exactly what are buying.
Christina