Colorful Copper Crystals

The cool thing about copper is when its in a compound it can be very pretty. The earth can push copper up with along with acids forming copper compounds that are great for collecting . Copper carbonate is a very weak base and that's what makes Azurite rocks very pretty. The oxides of copper can be also be pretty like bright green malachite that most have seen in rock shops. Many miners pay attention to the color of rocks while prospecting because they give signs to were gold and other minerals are. Signs of rust, quarts, green or blue rocks are a good sign as they contain iron, copper and heavy elements tend to stick with heavy elements.
These are some more rocks that have copper in them. These rocks are copper ore found in different parts of the United States. The ore can vary color from blues to greens to red and black. Copper is in almost everything now and days and this is were its journey starts from some rocks that look nothing.

Fools gold got lots of people thinking they found gold only to find out it was pyrite. The good news about finding pyrite is sometimes its found next to gold producing areas, so finding pyrite is a good sign. The reason for this is pyrite is a compound formed from Iron + Sulphur, both are heaver elements. When pyrite is exposed to the weather it decomposes into rust leaving bright red rust stains on the near by rocks.
This photo you can see the pyrite that has been exposed to water and weathering and has started to rust the pyrite crystals. Rocks like this can tell a prospector that they are on the right trail.

I build up lots of scrap copper wire from work. I decided to make some copper crystals from my scrap one day to see what I could grow. I had two choices , copper nitrate crystals or copper sulfate . I have chosen sulfate because sulfuric acid is cheaper than nitric acid. I basically dissolve copper wire into solution till it dissolves no more copper metal.

When the process is done dissolving the copper I am left with this very blue solution. It can be light or darker depending on how much copper is in solution and how much water is in there. I basically boil down to make the concentration stronger and then let it sit in a cool place for several days. What I am left with is some very pretty copper sulfate crystals.

The crystals are very hard means I did a pretty good job letting them crystalized over several days. They are quite heavy and feel like they have the weight of copper. I think the copper crystals are quite neat and most people never know copper can be so beautiful. Have a good day to all and hope you learned something new!!