Staurolite

specimen number:
2133354

location:
Hondo Canyon, Taos Co., New Mexico, USA

description:
A perfect loose twinned crystal grouping of staurolite. These are often referred to as fairy crosses. Complete all around with no points of attachment. In great condition.

Hondo Canyon, situated within the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of Taos County, New Mexico, is a historically significant locality noted for small-scale placer mining and mineral prospecting rather than massive industrial quarrying. Geologically, the canyon cuts deeply through the Proterozoic-aged Vadito Group and Hondo Group, which consist of highly metamorphosed sedimentary and volcanic rocks including pelitic schists, quartzites, and phyllites. Regional amphibolite-facies metamorphism under elevated temperatures and pressures recrystallized these aluminum-rich sedimentary rocks, creating extensive schist bands containing high concentrations of staurolite alongside muscovite, biotite, and garnet. The locality is prominent for its abundant twinned staurolite crystals, which occur within the matrix or weathered out into the loose hillside soil, frequently exhibiting classic ninety-degree cruciform twins and sixty-degree St. Andrew's cross twins. Localized mining and gold panning in the broader Hondo and Arroyo Hondo districts began around 1880, with a brief period of formalized underground development at nearby lode prospects between 1890 and 1905, though commercial mining operations ceased entirely by the early twentieth century due to low ore grades.

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