Native copper, DeGrussa mine, WACollection Highlights | Updated 10 months ago Native copper on matrix from the DeGrussa mine, WA. Specimen is 7.6 cm high. Donated by Sandfire Resources. WA Museum specimen number M47.2019 Geoff Deacon, WA Museum The DeGrussa copper deposit in central WA occurs in a sequence of volcanic rocks that erupted on the sea floor about 2 billion years ago. The ‘primary’ minerals at DeGrussa were copper, iron and zinc-rich sulfide minerals such as chalcopyrite, pyrite, pyrrhotite and sphalerite that formed at high temperatures on or below the sea floor. Many millions of years after it formed, this ‘ore’ was exposed at the Earth’s surface where the ‘primary’ sulfides were transformed by the action of groundwaters and our oxygen-rich atmosphere to produce a colourful blanket of ‘secondary’ minerals like malachite, azurite, chrysocolla, cuprite and copper. In 2019, a large collection of mineral specimens from the DeGrussa mine was generously donated to the WA Museum by Sandfire Resources. You can see many of these specimens on display in the Origins gallery at WAM Boola Bardip. Mineral Collection