Turquoise is an opaque mineral that occurs in beautiful shades of blue, bluish green, green, and yellowish green. Most of the world’s turquoise rough is currently produced in the southwestern United States, China, Chile, Egypt, Iran, and Mexico. Very few minerals have a colour that is so well known, so characteristic, and so impressive that the name of the mineral becomes so commonly used.  Turquoise is the birthstone for the month of December.

Chrysocolla has a cyan (blue-green) colour and is a minor ore of copper and is often mistaken for turquoise because they share many visual similarities. Chrysocolla can be found wherever large copper deposits occur, such as Africa, Mexico and the U.S. state of Arizona (where it is called Apache chrysocolla). Chrysocolla from the state of Arizona is a mixture of chrysocolla, turquoise, jasper, lapis, malachite and quartz crystal minerals. Chrysocolla is one of the zodiac stones for those born under the sign, Sagittarius, between November 22 and December 21.