Facts and figures about copper mineral, how it makes a wonderful jewelry, and its metaphysical properties effects the spiritual and emotional life

The figures

Did you know that, an average home contain about 400 pounds of copper? Why would you care, since a moderate income these days $55.000/year yet copper worth about $4/pound. Any one can easily afford it. However if you think about how mines producing it, the theoretical value of this precious ore’s might raise your eyebrow. A well equiped mine moves about 300 000 tones of rocks to extract 2 000 tones/day. On the street level, it means like a 140 km/ 87 Mi / long line of dump trucks bumper to bumper.

What is copper anyways? Copper is a mineral also a native element, found in oxidized zones, in hydrothermal veins. Probably the most important ore in the development of the human existence. Native copper in small chunks found in rivers, than about 7000 years ago evolution took a sharp turn, when the red/gold nugget melted and worked to tools.
Finding the native deposits however wasn’t easy at that age, our ancestors turned to other sources, like extracting from oxidised rocks. Copper smelting recorded as early as the 5th millennium BCE, and lasted as late as the early 20th century

The facts

This topic however not about the ore, but the rocks that contains it. These copper carbonate and silicate minerals displays blue, green, and red/brown colors, and makes very impressive jewelry and ornamental pieces. Malachite with its swirly banded pattern carved and polished since the 3rd millennium BCE. Azurite used since antiquity, deep blue kind of soft stone, sometimes with fascinating crystal structure a sought after specimen for collectors even today.
The most messmerizing however is the Chrysocolla, that is a hydrosilicated version and mixture of the above mentioned two minerals. From deep blue to baby blue blends with shades of green and the occasional inclusion of Cuprite with reddish brown allows lapidarists to design eye catching jewelry.

Chrysocolla found all over the world. However a few locations offers outstanding beauties, like the Peruvian Nazca mine, or the neighbouring Cusco version with higher Chalcedony contains, in addition to lighter blue color. The Arizona Chrysocolla is a mixture of turquoise, Jasper, quartz, with greenish blue tint, translucent, and looks awesome when light held behind.