Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A brownish to black mineral, chiefly (FeMg)2Al9Si4O23(OH), often having crossed intergrown crystals and sometimes used as a gem.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A silicate of aluminium and iron occurring in reddish- to yellowish-brown or brownish-black prismatic crystals. These crystals are often twins, in the form of a cross, whence it is called cross-stone. Also staurotide, qrenatite.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Min.) A mineral of a brown to black color occurring in prismatic crystals, often twinned so as to form groups resembling a cross. It is a silicate of alumina and iron, and is generally found imbedded in mica schist. Called also granatite, and grenatite.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun mineralogy A dark brown nesosilicate mineral that has crystals that cross and intergrow

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Greek stauros, cross; see stā- in Indo-European roots + –lite.]

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Examples

  • The natural materials include the minerals staurolite, quartz, diamond and corundum.

    Garnet 2008

  • In the metamorphosed Thunderhead Sandstone it was found that at the staurolite isograd, the boundary between the garnet and staurolite zones, the mineral chlorite disappears from the rocks and muscovite decreases sharply, whereas staurolite appears and biotite becomes more abundant.

    Ken Miller in Cleveland: WEBCAST ARCHIVE URLS - The Panda's Thumb 2006

  • As can be readily seen in figure 1, whereas seven of the samples averaged around 30 Po radiohalos each, the two samples straddling the staurolite isograd contained 177 and 147 Po radiohalos respectively.

    Ken Miller in Cleveland: WEBCAST ARCHIVE URLS - The Panda's Thumb 2006

  • However, where the mineral reaction around the staurolite isograd has produced a lot of hot water, large numbers of Po radiohalos have formed.

    Ken Miller in Cleveland: WEBCAST ARCHIVE URLS - The Panda's Thumb 2006

  • The thick Thunderhead Sandstone (Upper Precambrian Great Smoky Group) in the Great Smoky Mountains along the Tennessee/North Carolina border was deformed and regionally metamorphosed during formation of the Appalachian Highlands, beginning in the so-called Devonian (that is, early in the Flood year).12-14 With increasing temperatures and pressures from northwest to southeast, the regional metamorphism produced in these sandstone layers a series of chemically and mineralogically distinct zones of schists and gneisses.15 These zones are named according to the first appearance of the distinctive metamorphic minerals which characterize them as the intensity of the metamorphism increased laterally—the biotite, garnet, staurolite, and kyanite zones.

    Ken Miller in Cleveland: WEBCAST ARCHIVE URLS - The Panda's Thumb 2006

  • “It’s brown staurolite,” Sammy explains as he hands one to Reverend Love.

    Sufficient Grace Darnell Arnoult 2006

  • “It’s brown staurolite,” Sammy explains as he hands one to Reverend Love.

    Sufficient Grace Darnell Arnoult 2006

Comments

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  • (n): the state mineral of Georgia. Twinned prismatic crystals of this mineral commonly take the form of a cross.

    The complex chemical formula of staurolite is (Fe,Mg,Zn)2Al9(Si,Al)4O20(OH)4, with the iron, magnesium and/or zinc present in variable ratios.

    January 1, 2009