Dravite

specimen number:
2062418

location:
Pilar Cliffs, Taos Co., New Mexico, USA

description:
The locality example for the species with lustrous prismatic crystals of dravite to 1.7 cm in length embedded within a schist matrix. Collected in 1995.

Pilar Cliffs, located near the historic village of Pilar in Taos County, New Mexico (originally settled under a Spanish land grant in 1793 and later officially named in 1918), exposes a dramatic sequence of Paleoproterozoic crystalline rocks shaped by Cenozoic north-down faulting along the Embudo fault zone and extensive downcutting by the Rio Grande. Geologically, the cliffs feature a succession of metamorphosed supracrustal rocks—including the quartzites of the Ortega Formation and schistose units like the Vadito Group—that exhibit complex ductile shear zones and folding. Within these surrounding metamorphic and schistose rocks, dravite—a brown, magnesium-rich member of the tourmaline mineral group—frequently occurs as prismatic, striated crystals formed via regional metamorphism and boron metasomatism.

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