K2 Granite, aka K2 Jasper aka Raindrop Azurite with Malachite Skardu area, Pakistan

Product Code: k22

Stock Level: 1

Price: $174.99

K2 Granite, aka K2 Jasper aka Raindrop Azurite with Malachite
Skardu area, Pakistan
9.74 cm x 10.70 cm x 6.45 cm , 724 grams / 1.09 lbs
 

When this material first arrived in the market a few years ago, it was thought to be fake / dyed. Examination revealed that this is indeed azurite in granite. This has the added mineral of malachite which adds green to the specimen in areas as well as around some of the azurite spots.
Many may have seen this material cut and polished into cabs. Here is a large rough natural piece that can be displayed as a specimen, but could also be used to slab to make jewelry pieces. The bottom has been cut and partially polished to more easily see what is within.


Below is some information on this interesting material.

K2 Granite," also known as "K2 Jasper" and "raindrop azurite," is an extremely interesting rock and lapidary material from the Skardu area of northern Pakistan. It is like an eye magnet for anyone who sees it for the first time. It is a bright white granite that contains sharply contrasting orbs of bright blue azurite. The azurite orbs range from a few millimeters up to about two centimeters in diameter. On a broken surface or on the surface of a slab, the blue orbs look like drops of bright blue ink that splashed onto the rock. Upon closer examination, however, you will see that they are actually spherical in shape.Although K2 Jasper is the most commonly used name for marketing this material, it is definitely not jasper. If you examine the rock with a magnifying glass, you will see cleavage faces of feldspar minerals and black flakes of biotite.The white granite is very fine-grained and composed of quartz, sodium plagioclase, muscovite, and biotite. Some specimens show strong alignment of the biotite grains and could be called "granite gneiss."Examination of the azurite spheres with a good hand lens or microscope reveals that the azurite is present along mineral grain boundaries, within tiny fractures, and as a "dye" penetrating the feldspar grains. The azurite is a secondary material that clearly formed after all of the other minerals in the granite had solidified from the parent melt.