January-February 2012

by Robert B. Cook

Few states can approach, much less match, the diversity and quantity of mineral specimens produced by Arizona. Its wide variety of economic mineral deposits coupled with an arid climate have resulted in more than a century of discovery and description of what have often been the finest research and collector-quality specimens. In fact, about seventy-five minerals were first discovered in the state, many of which have names uniquely linked to Arizona places and people (see Grant and Jong in this issue). Some of the more familiar of these include ajoite, apachite, bideauxite, coconinoite, graemite, grandreefite, jeromite, maricopaite, papagoite, shattuckite, and wickenburgite. Although many of these are attractive and make good additions to any collection, few are as pretty as kinoite, a mineral named for one of the earliest explorers to document mining of the state's rich silver ores. The mineral, first discovered as bright blue crystals in drill core from a copper prospect in the Santa Rita Mountains, was described by Anthony and Laughon (1970) and Laughon (1971) and was named in honor of Italian-born Fr. Usebio Francisco Kino (1645–1711), a remarkable Jesuit missionary who was for a quarter of a century the outstanding figure on the Sonora-Arizona-California frontier. Consequently, in keeping with the Arizona theme of the 2012 Tucson Gem and Mineral Show, kinoite has been suggested as an appropriate topic for this issue's Connoisseur's Choice column.