As fall approaches, our club activities continue with the monthly meetings, field trips, the Denver Show, the club show, and Jr. Geologist activities for the kids. All of these activities are possible because of our great volunteers.  Club elections will be held in October, and there are several opportunities to serve as a club officer.  We have vacancies for club president, field trip chair, club show chair, and secretary.  Consider volunteering for one of these offices, or co-chair with another club member.  If you would like to find our more about what is involved, please contact me.  The jobs are not overwhelming, and there are several experienced club members who will help you learn your job.

Be sure to join us on Thursday, September 8th for a great club meeting.  Our guest speaker will be our own Jim Armitage and his presentation is on Mineral Identification. I hope to see you there.

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FMC Annual Picnic

Our club held its annual picnic on Saturday, August 20, at North Boulder Park.  The picnic was a great success, with 48 club members in attendance.  The “Rockhound of the Year” award was awarded to John and Jeanne Hurst. Nearly 400 grab bags were prepared for our fall show, the sales of which support our School of Mines scholarship fund.

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September Club Meeting

Our speaker for the September meeting (Sept. 8 at the Senior Center, 9th & Arapaho) is our own Jim Armitage, who will be giving a class on Mineral Identification! Everyone attending is encouraged to bring a specimen or two to work on for the class! I think this will be a chance for newer members to pick up some new skills, for more knowledgeable members to assist, and for the junior geologists to shine! (See details below)

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Jr. Geologist Activities

Jr. Geologists, be sure to mark you calendars for the next two activities.

The next meeting will be on Thursday, September 22nd at 7:00 p.m.  We will begin working on another badge, so you will not want to miss this meeting.  If you are putting together your fossil collection to complete the fossil badge, plan to bring it to this meeting to show everyone else.

A special Jr. Geologist field trip will be led by Cory Olin to the White Raven Mine to collect specimens on Sunday, October 16th.  Further details will be available at the next meeting.

Our club’s Jr. Geologist program is featured in the September 2005 Rock & Gem magazine.  The article, “Badges of Merit, American Federation Program Encourages Junior Rockhounds” on page 60 discusses the badge program that our Jr. Geologists work on.  Various clubs around the country are successfully using this program to teach kids about the fun of rockhounding.  On page 62 of the article is a picture of Paul Boni teaching lapidary workshop safety to Jr. Geologists Gabe Walter, Stefan Codrescu, Natasha Goss, Addison Starn, and Cara Keyser.

The Jr. Geologist program is open to all families in the Flatirons Mineral Club. For more information about the program, contact Dennis Gertenbach.

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FMC Fall Show Venue Change!

Due to circumstances beyond our control, the Boulder Elks Lodge will not be available for our show.  Alex Cook, his show committee, and especially Ray Gilbert worked hard to come up with a new location.  The 2005 FMC Show will be held in Building A at the Boulder County Fairgrounds in Longmont.  The new dates are Dec. 9,10, & 11 with Dec. 8 being our set-up day.  Please mark your calendars today and if you have a yellow show flyer, put it in the recycle bin and pick up the new blue flyers at Charlotte Morrison's or the Hurst's house. (New flyer attached to this newsletter).

Show Committee Meeting Dates:

August 30, 7:30 p.m.  At the Hurst's   2863 Nebrina Place

September 27, 7:30 p.m. at the Morrison's   290 Seminole Drive

October 25, 7:30 p.m. at the Cook's   636 Linden Park Drive

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Grab Bag Fabric Needed

Donations of cotton fabric to be cut out for grab bags are requested. We are currently almost out of fabric. Charlotte Morrison usually wants enough material for 900 bags per year--i.e. 450 for our club and 450 for the Denver Council..

Also, Charlotte is requesting donations for grab bag rock specimens. We also need donations of medium size rock specimens for the kids' dig site at our fall show.

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Field Trips
Dennis Gertenbach

Fall (date to be determined) Cretaceous Adventure. Trip Leader:  Dennis Gertenbach. We will head out of town to visit several sites with Cretaceous age fossils.  From approximately 69 to 80 million years ago, eastern Colorado was covered by the Western Interior Seaway.  Marine fossils from that period will be collected.

October 8 – Florissant Shale Splitting. Trip Leader:  Gerry Naugle. Come to the CU campus, Henderson Geology Bldg for a Florissant shale splitting party. Material from the fossil beds will be available for splitting in search of fossil leaves and insects.  The cost will be $3 per person for FMC members.

Fall (date to be determined) - Phoenix Mine. Trip Leader:  Ray Horton. Located outside of Idaho Springs, the Phoenix Mine takes you back in time when mining was king in Colorado.  A guided tour will take you back into the mine and explain how gold was extracted.  You will also have a chance to try your hand at gold panning. Kids – plan to bring a friend.  A fee will be charged.

Note: I've taken the field trip information that Charlotte Morrison gave me at the last board meeting and filed the information into a file box for the next field trip chair.  (We need to keep thinking about who would make a great chair for next year.)  A couple of things:

1. If you have information about a place that the club could consider for a field trip - perhaps an article that you have or someplace you have been - please make a copy and pass it on to me to put into the club field trip file.

2. A couple of years ago, I went through a bunch of old newsletters from other clubs and pulled out field trip information.  I put this stuff into a three-ring notebook and gave it to someone.  Unfortunately, my memory has failed me and I can't remember who I gave it to.  If you have this notebook, I'd like to get it back and add the contents to the club field trip file.

New Dinosaur Tracks Discovered in Colorado - Field Trip October 1st

Last summer at John Martin Reservoir in southeastern Colorado, a new dinosaur trackway was discovered along the drought- lowered shoreline.  The prints were left behind by herds of duck-billed dinosaurs that trudged through the mud near the shoreline of an ancient sea 100 million years ago.  About 300 tracks have been found at the reservoir to date. The duck-billed dinosaurs that left the tracks were herbivores that walked on their hind limbs. The largest were 30 feet long and weighed 2 tons

During the Cretaceous Period, 100 million years ago, the sediments forming today’s Dakota Group were deposited along the western shoreline of the Western Interior Seaway, an ocean that extended from the Hudson Bay south to the Gulf of Mexico and covered what is now the Great Plains.  So many dinosaur footprints have been found in the Dakota Formation, including those on Dinosaur Ridge near Morrison Dakota Group, that these outcroppings are known to paleontologists as the Dinosaur Freeway.

The three-toed tracks at John Martin Reservoir are up to a foot long and resemble a three-dimensional cast of a print, rather than just an impression.  They formed when sand washed into the dinosaur footprints in mud. More mud covered the sand-filled dinosaur print, and the sediments became rock.  Much later, the sandstone and mudstone eroded away, revealing the tracks.

Martin Lockley, director of the Dinosaur Tracks Museum at UC Denver, and CU graduate student Reiji Kukihara have described these tracks at a recent meeting of the Geological Society of America.  Their study of the site has shown evidence that the dinosaurs may have been together in a herd, because of the many parallel trackways.  They speculate that the dinosaurs were following the shoreline of this ancient sea, perhaps along a migratory route.

One of the discoverers of these tracks will lead a field trip for our club on October 1st to visit these tracks.  The John Martin Reservoir is located between La Junta and Lamar, along the Arkansas River.  This may be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to view these fossils, before the rising reservoir covers them again.   Please remember,that the tracks are on federal property and it is illegal to remove them.  To sign up for the trip and for more information, contact the trip leader, Dennis Gertenbach.

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Thank You All!!!

John & Jeanne Hurst

We were speechless, as those of you at the FMC picnic undoubtedly noticed, when the club announced its pick for the FMC Rockhounds of the Year.  We are indeed grateful for the recognition, and hope to work harder to help our club grow and prosper. In short, thank you all.

We would like to acknowledge every member of the club for her or his contributions that inject life into our club. The danger of recognition awards is that we may overlook the stellar work of one, the outstanding work of another and we risk overlooking the hard work of so many others entirely.

To us, every member’s efforts are equally important, because the club needs each and every member.  Our club especially needs new members to step forward with fresh new ideas.  We need long-term members to get re-energized to join in the work and at the same time help new members get involved and grow with the club. The question is, how do we blend everyone’s strengths together to become a more effective club?

We can all find a way to contribute our time, energy and expertise to this hobby that we all so enjoy. How? How about joining in the field trips, by sharing suggestions for field trips and program speakers, by sharing our interests and knowledge, by mentoring younger members, newer members and each other, by donating to silent auctions and club fundraisers, especially those two weekends a year-the biggest fundraisers—namely, the FMC Gem & Mineral Show and the Denver Council Gem & Mineral Show.

The more effort that we put into any endeavor, the greater the rewards are to come out of our efforts.  Everyone’s efforts resulted in major improvements in the 2004 FMC show. In 2005, we need everyone’s commitment and help as we work hard to bring a new site (on a new weekend) up to a successful level.  Please get involved today in any way that you can.

Without mentioning names, great strides were made in 2004 in show signage, in the Boulder Public Library displays, in the FMC library materials displays, in the Scholarship displays, in ticket sales, in door prizes and grand prizes, in U-V displays, in Mini-classes, in the quality of speakers at our show and club meetings, in the expanded junior activities with awards, in children’s show activities, in vastly improving show signage, in improved show advertising---we could go on forever, the list seems endless.  Again, the pitfall is in not recognizing each and every contribution. For all those good deeds that we may not be aware of, or may have somehow overlooked, give yourself a well-deserved pat on the back.   

To us, you are all Rockhounds of the Year, especially for all that you contribute to the success of our members and to the success of our club. Those who work so hard behind the scenes are the backbone of the club giving it strength and vitality.

In conclusion, we would like to request that each member get involved, and stay involved (no dropouts allowed, no hide and seek, no excuses either), for you are the ones who make our hobby fun, informative, and full of great moments and memories. What has each one of us done today to further our hobby?  Let’s have fun and help our hobby grow.  It needs active minds, active bodies, and active club members. When the nominating committee calls, let’s be ready to serve our club in some capacity. When the show chair calls, be ready to actively help any way you can.  It is all of you who are indeed--the Rockhounds of the Year!

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Jim Armitage’s Mineral Identification Class/Contest for September Meeting

Club members will have the opportunity of winning 10-15 specimens, selected from 35 to 40 different specimens.  But—they are not free—you have to work for them!

Jim Armitage will present his hour-long presentation on identification of 75 minerals that he presents to 700 to 800 students each year in Colorado and Arizona.  You will be in a small group of fellow club members and visitors, competing with other groups to see which group can identify the greatest number correctly.  The group getting the most correct will win their choice of 15 specimens, and the group getting the least correct will receive 10 specimens each.

To provide a better quality of prizes, each person should bring 5 to 15 specimens to contribute to the pot from which we will all select.  You of course have the possibility of selecting some of your own!

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Minerals of the Wrong Feather Don't Flock Together:

You can't make chocolate cake without chocolate

Dr. Bill Cordua, University of Wisconsin - River Falls (From PUEBLO ROCKHOUNDS, July 2005)

Most rockhounds know that minerals are identified by their physical and chemical properties. Many also know that an important clue in mineral identification is association - certain minerals are often found together. For example, malachite often is found with copper, and gold is often found embedded in quartz. What many don't realize is that another important identification clue is that many minerals are not found together. For example, lazurite, sodalite, and corundum are never found associated with quartz. As another example, beryl does not occur with dolomite in our local limestones.

Well, why not? Doesn't that seem a hit arbitrary? Isn't "never" sort of a strong term to be used by a scientist? It turns out that there are good chemical reasons why this is so.  In some cases, it is simply a matter of a particular rock type not having the needed chemicals to make the minerals. There is no chemical incompatibility between dolomite and beryl, yet we don't find beryl in limestone. Why not? In order to make beryl, you need to have beryllium, a chemical present in, at best, trace amounts in most limestones. By analogy, you can't make a chocolate cake without chocolate, no matter how hard you try. The fact that chemicals tend to segregate in places in our earth leads to the commonly observed mineral associations. Certain granites have lots of beryllium in them; it's an element that tends to accumulate in such magmas. Thus, beryl is found in granites, along with the typical quartz, feldspar, mica and tourmaline. In other cases the mineral won't form because the proper temperature, pressure or other geochemical conditions (such as acidity) were not achieved in the rock. For example, diamond won't form in a rock unless certain conditions are met. In yet other cases, there is a true chemical incompatibility. It is because of this that quartz is never found with olivine, corundum, sodalite, or lazurite. These minerals are just not chemically stable together. Does this mean if you put a piece of corundum

next to a piece of quartz that they'll explode? Of course not. The point is that the two minerals will simply not form together in the same environment. If corundum forms, quartz won't form and vice versa. The reason is that corundum forms only in a low silica environment, but quartz only in a high silica one.

Let's consider a hot magma. There are no minerals in the magma - only loose atoms darting around. As the magma cools, these atoms begin to bond together to form minerals. Let's suppose this is a low-silica magma. There are lots of other chemicals, such as aluminum around. The aluminum likes to link to what silica there is around to form feldspars. But since this is a low-silica magma, there isn't enough to go around. The extra aluminum has to go somewhere, so, when it gets concentrated enough, it forms corundum. Now let's suppose this is a high silica magma. All the aluminum finds silica and makes feldspar. Now there is silica left over, so quartz eventually forms. In the first case, you have a rock formed consisting of feldspar and corundum; in the second case you have a rock formed consisting of feldspar and quartz. You can never get a rock with quartz and corundum forming together in it. There are similar relationships between quartz and sodalite, olivine and several other minerals. So if someone offers you a specimen of corundum crystals embedded in quartz, start looking for the glue!

Dr. Bill Cordua has been a professor of geology since 1973 at the University of  Wisconsin - River Falls. He is in the Rockhound and Lapidary Hall of Fame in Murdo, South Dakota, and is a Fellow of the Geological Society of America. E-mail: william.s.cordua@uwrf.edu

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Upcoming Events, Nearby & Elsewhere

Sep. 10-11:  Mineral Symposium sponsored by the Colorado Chapter, Friends of Mineralogy, the USGS, and the Colorado School of Mines Geology Museum, "Agate and Cryptocrystalline Quartz", to be held at the Green Center, Colorado School of Mines campus. Registration fee is $40, Saturday evening banquet $25, plus optional (no charge) field trips on the 12th and 13th.

All are invited to attend.  There will be over 30 speakers during the two days, coming from all over the U.S. plus 5 other countries!

Sep. 16-18:  Denver Gem and Mineral Show at the Denver Merchandise Mart, 58th Ave. and I-25.  See http://www.denvermineralshow.com/.  This is THE place each year to see, learn about, and purchase, rocks, minerals, gems, jewelry, fossils, books, and anything related; it is the 2nd-largest annual mineral show in the U.S. Hours are 9-6 Fri., 10-6 Sat., 10-5 Sun.; admission charge.  The USGS will have a booth here, along with many museums from all over the country.  "Agate and Quartz" is also the theme of this show.

Sep. 15-18: Colorado Mineral and Fossil Show: overlapping the time of the "main" Denver Show is this commercial show (everyone welcome, no admission charge; "200 dealers, free shuttle bus to the Merchandise Mart") held at the Holiday Inn-Denver Central (4849 Bannock, west side of I-25); 10-6 Wed.-Sat., 10-5 Sunday.  See http://www.mzexpos.com/colorado_fall.htm for more info.

Check Flatiron Mineral Club’s own web site for additional events, and further details:

http://bcn.boulder.co.us/community/fmc/fmctk.htm

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Where Did Christopher Columbus Go Wrong?

By Ernest Barnhart (From Rock Buster News, 3/01 Via Strata Gem 1/03)

Columbus has been described as a man who didn't know where he was going, didn't know where he had been, did it several more times, and all on borrowed money. However, he is the only foreigner honored with a legal holiday in the United States.

The idea that he world is round was widely accepted by the time of Columbus. The main dissent was from the church, which held that the earth was a flat disc covered with a canopy, probably to provide a physical manifestation of heaven.

The spherical earth theory was proposed by several Greeks, the first of which was Aristotle (384-322 BC), who observed the shadow on the moon during an eclipse and concluded that this could only be caused by a round object.

The first who actually sought to prove this theory was Eratosthenes (circa 276-196 BC). Born in Libya, he was the chief of the library at Alexandria, Egypt. This library was the repository of more than 100,000 scrolls containing the world's collective knowledge.

Eratosthenes heard of a well in what is now Aswan where the sun's reflection could be seen in the water of the well on June 21, the longest day of the year. He surmised that the sun was directly above the earth at that moment. He knew that this location was directly south of Alexandria and by measuring the shadow of an obelisk in Alexandria at the same time there was no shadow at the well, he computed the length of the two sides of a triangle, the length of the shadow and the height of the obelisk. He figured the angle of the triangle, which was 7 - 12 inches, approximately equal to one fiftieth of a circle's 360 degrees.

He still needed one more measurement. The Greek standard of measurement was the stadia (based on the size of a Greek race course). Standard camel performance was to cover 100 stadia per day, and since it took a camel 50 days to make the trip between his two points, he Calculated the distance to be 5000 stadia, multiplied by 50 and come up with a figure of 2150,000 stadia for the earth's circumference. Translated to modern measurements, his earth measured 25,000 miles, amazingly close to the actual distance at the poles of 24,860 miles. His scientific apparatus for this experiment consisted of something to measure the length of a shadow.

Unfortunately, some people cannot leave well enough alone. Sometime later, another Greek scholar named Strabo, for some unknown reason, reduced Eratosthenes' figure from 25,000 to 18,000 miles. By Columbus' time the original calculation had been overlooked and it was this latter figure that Columbus relied on for his voyage.

Columbus knew the approximate distance from Europe to Japan, west to east, thanks to Marco Polo's journeys to the Far East. If his calculations of the earth's circumference of 18,000 miles had been correct, he would probably have been justified in assuming he had reached the Orient. A Greek scholar, 1700 years before Columbus' voyage had it right, and if Columbus had had the correct information, he may have realized he was 7,000 miles short of his objective.

Reference: Don't Know Much About Geography by Kenneth C Davis

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A Lifetime Supply of Rocks and Minerals

Source: http://www.rocksandmineral.com/uses.htm  (From Pick & Pack 6/05)

Based on current consumption, it is estimated that you - and every other person in the United States - will use more than a million pounds of rocks, minerals and metals during your lifetime including:

• 800 pounds of lead - Primarily used in the construction of batteries. Also used as a radiation shielding during x-ray treatment by your doctor and dentist and as a protective shield on your TV screen to protect you from radiation from that source.

• 750 pounds of zinc - primarily used as a rust inhibitor for steel in the construction of cars, buildings, bridges, ships and trains.

• 1,500 pounds of copper - Primarily used in the manufacture of copper wire to conduct electricity needed in your car, home, office, school, church, appliances.

• 3,600 pounds of aluminum - Cans, aircraft and automobile construction, sporting and electronic equipment, appliances.

• 32,000 pounds of iron - Used to make steel for cars, subways, ships, cans, building construction, heavy equipment, appliances, power transmission turbines and towers.

• 27,000 pounds of clays - Used to coat the pages of newspapers magazines, stationery, brochures and boxes so that the ink used in printing on them will be bright and will not run. Also used as a brightener and abrasive in toothpaste and to provide a smooth coating for your stomach in medicines.

• 28,000 pounds of salt - Used in food preservation (almost all canned and frozen food contain salt), to enhance the taste of foods and to melt the ice on streets and highways during the winter. Also used in the manufacture of many chemicals, for water treatment, papermaking, soaps & detergents and in petroleum refining.

• 1,000,000 pounds of stone, sand, gravel and cement - Use in streets, highways and sidewalks; in the foundation for your house and school; as decorative materials for yards and gardens; in water purification plants to protect your health and in the construction of buildings from the most modest of homes to the world's tallest skyscrapers.

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Updated 4/14/08