MALACHITE TUMBLE

Malachite

An important protection stone, it absorbs negative energies and pollutants easily. Malachite is a stone of transformation, it encourages risk-taking and change, and reveals to you what is blocking your spiritual growth.

Malachite is a copper carbonate hydroxide mineral with a hardness of 3.5-4 on the Mohs scale, which means it's quite soft and can scratch relatively easily.

Though malachite was one of the first ores used to produce copper metal, it is not used as much today because it's more valuable as a specimen/jewelry. It's been revered by humans for over 4000 years and used as a sculptural material & as a gemstone. Ancient Egyptians even used ground up malachite as pigment. Today it is most often sold polished and cut into cabochons or beads for jewelry.

Most malachite deposits have been aggressively mined, so while it's historically been found in Egypt, Palestine, and Russia - most of today's material is mined in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, with small deposits in Morocco, Australia, France, & the US (namely Arizona).

Malachite is a striking green color that doesn't fade in sunlight or over time. It forms at shallow depths in oxidizing zones above copper deposits, in a favorable subsurface chemical environment that also facilitates formation of Azurite, Bornite, Calcite, Chalcopyrite, Chrysocolla, Copper, Turquoise, and other iron oxides. This is why you often find it alongside Chrysocolla and Azurite in mixed specimens.

Natural malachite comes in many forms: including botryoidal formations (like "forbidden broccoli"), a cluster shape called "velvet" malachite due to its velvet-like texture, and sometimes as stalactites and botryoidal coatings in caves. These formations are echoed in the natural swirls and bullseyes you can see in polished malachite.

These were hand selected at the Tucson Gem Show, from my Congolese supplier. I source all of my malachite pieces from this supplier (except for bracelet beads) - a Congolese couple that I've been working with for almost 5 years now. They are truly wonderful people and I look forward to shopping with them multiple times a year. These folks work tirelessly to sell their material, traveling the country to set up at gem shows all year long, so they can give more business to the families they work with back home in DRC and better support their livelihood. As members of the community - they know the folks doing the mining and the lapidary work, and they support them with a steady stream of income through their export business. They treat their employees well (every person I've ever met speaks so highly of them) and they pay above asking price for the material from those who mine and cut/polish it back in DRC.