Description
Ajoite is a hydrated sodium potassium copper aluminum silicate hydroxide mineral. Ajoite has the chemical formula (Na,K)Cu7AlSi9O24(OH)6·3H2O, and minor Mn, Fe and Ca are usually also present in the structure. Ajoite is used as a minor ore of copper. In August 1941 Harry Berman of Harvard University was collecting at Ajo, in Pima County, Arizona, US. He found specimens of dark blue shattuckite, together with a bluish green mineral which he suspected was a new species. Berman and WT Schaller had planned to collaborate on the investigation of this mineral, together with other known copper silicate minerals, but Berman died in a plane crash in 1944, aged 42, before this study was done. It was not until 1958 that Schaller, together with Angelina Vlisidis (both of the US Geological Survey) studied the greenish mineral and determined that it was indeed a new species. They named it “ajoite” (pronounced ah-hoe-ite) after the place where it had been found
