Great South Gems & Minerals

• Staurolite Crystal Blades •
(Georgia)

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• Staurolite Crystal Blades •
(Georgia)

Staurolite Crystals - Fairy Crosses - Fairy Stones

Six Staurolite Crystals with mica schist coating. From Georgia. All of these crystals have a coating of a mica schist, like the ones in the "before" photo shown. I cleaned these six pieces with a Dremel tool with a small grinding wheel. The schist coating on the crystals is fairly soft, about 3-1/2 to 4, while the Staurolite crystals themselves are much harder, 7 to 7-1/2. You can easily clean the schist from the crystals with a small file, a piece of sandpaper, or just scrape the schist off the crystals with the point of a knife. We figured that if we took the time to clean the schist from all of the crystals that it would take a couple of days and really add to the cost of these beauties. So we didn't clean them. But, don't worry, it's easy to do yourself.

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Commonly called Fairy Crosses or Fairy Stones. These unusual crystals form in three shapes... The single "blade, like most of these specimens and a ninety-degree cross, called a Maltise Cross or Greek Cross, and two intertwined crystals that form a letter "X", usually forming at a 60 degree angle to each other. Ray personally collected these unusual crystals in the North Georgia mountians.

See Wikipedia page on Staurolite.

See large Staurolite crystals in mica schist matrix from Russia.

In 1976, staurolite was named the official state mineral. Georgia has a wealth of minerals, among them staurolite crystals, popularly called "Fairy Crosses" or "Fairy Stones." Particularly abundant in north Georgia, the distinctively twinned, crossed crystals have been collected for generations as good luck charms.

Staurolite is a hard, insoluble mineral formed from iron magnesium aluminum silicate, naturally occurring as reddish-brown orthorhombic crystals embedded in a matrix of metamorphic rocks high in iron and aluminium. The high hematite content gives Staurolite crystals their characteristic reddish brown color.

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