A sharp crystal of lazurite, sitting right up on the marble matrix. A representative miniature for this species. Lazurite is the blue component of the 'gemstone' (or, more usually, decorative rock) Lapis Lazuli, which is a lazurite-calcite-pyrite rock that has been mined as a gem material for some 9,000 years. Before the 2021 redefinition, all lazurites were only sulfide-rich varieties of haüyne and not a separate species.