Located along the Arizona-New Mexico border the Morenci claim was intermittently worked for many decades. A light blue Turquoise primarily famous because of the contrasting “silvery colored” inclusions –usually pyrite &/or greyish Quartz– Morenci is particularly pretty when polished into irregular nuggets which allow the contrast of soft blue Turquoise and wintery grey matrix to show itself to best advantage.
Sadly, mind while there may still be some Turquoise in the ground in the Morenci area the likelihood of Morenci reopening as a Turquoise mining area in the future is slim to non-existent. The value of the copper claims in the area has increased to such an extant that industrial copper mining operations have taken over most of the region and chances are the heavy equipment being used is destroying whatever Turquoise remains in the ground. Since the 1980s there has been little to no intact turquoise recovered from the Morenci area. Morenci Turquoise is now a true collectible.