Our president, busy working on our annual show, is taking this month off, but he would be sure to exhort you to participate in and attend the show!  It is set for Dec 8-10 (Friday to Sunday) at the Boulder County Fairgrounds on Hover St. in Longmont. There will be lots of dealers, a flint-knapper, gold-panning, and, this year it  is a joint show with the Boulder Model Railroad Club, so there should be plenty of interest for all.

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Upcoming Club Programs

The December monthly meeting is on Thurs. Dec 14th at the West Boulder Senior Center. Please bring an approx. $5 to $10 mineral specimen or other mineral, rock-hounding, or lapidary related gift for our holiday gift exchange, and some holiday finger food or snack foods. This is a fun event, especially for the kids!

For our January meeting (Jan 11), we will have a talk by Ed Raines on the geology, mineralogy, and mining history of the Cripple Creek/Victor area. This is one of Ed’s areas of great expertise, so this is one not to miss!

The February meeting (Feb 8) will feature a slide show by Jerry Naugle of the 60-or-so best mineral/gem slides from is collection.

For the March club meeting we are planning a very special event—a celebration of the Flatirons Mineral Club’s 50th anniversary! Chuck and Jan Buda would like to have an impromptu committee to organize this—solicit ideas, displays, and invite past members to come for a fun reunion.

The April meeting is tentatively set to be our annual silent auction. Further details will be announced in the next newsletter.
 

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Jack Horner Talk at CU Museum Well-Attended
Gerry Naugle

A large and enthusiastic audience was in attendance on Oct 6 at CU, for a talk by Jack Horner on the problems of dinosaur ontogeny. Dr. Jack Horner is the Regents Professor of Paleontology and Curator of the Museum Of The Rockies on the Montana State Univ. (MSU) campus in Boseman, MT.  He was the technical advisor for the Jurassic Park movies, as was the 'model' for the paleontologist character in all three of the movies. His talk at CU was about possible mis-identifications of dinosaur skeletons at dig sites in Montana and elsewhere, e.g. China and Argentina. The potential to mis-identify the dino genus and species is due to the fact that most of the time they are identified at dig sites or subsequent museum laboratories by their skull bone and teeth structures, (aka, bone morphology, and teeth morphology). Big twist: the skull bones and teeth structures of some dino species changed shape significantly as they developed from infancy to their maturity. And guess what else? Some species apparently never stopped growing, even at 'full adult' stage! There were implied hormonal and internal-chemistry DNA factors that didn't check their body growth. Several dino species just kept getting bigger and bigger and their skeleton, skull and teeth morphologies would change up until the time that they died (for some other reason).  Result:  This is a big issue at some dino fossil dig sites, because you can have the bones and teeth pieces of young members of one species looking just like the more mature bones of a different species within the same dig area of fossils.  A sampling of the youthful skull bones of medium sized duck-bill-type dinosaurs in eastern MT are difficult to distinguish from an entirely different species of plant eaters in the same area, right up until they mature to "full adults".

When, all of a sudden, the skull and teeth morphologies of the duck-bills finally became recognizable as such.  

If you want to learn a lot more on this topic, I would suggest that you go visit Jack Horner's webpage and see his mug at: www.montana.edu/wwwes.facstaff/horner.htm. That page has a link to his MSU Museum of the Rockies.   Note:  If you are really into the field of paleontology, this Museum of the Rockies is the "center of your universe".   And/or take a summer vacation trip over to Boseman, MT (450 mi) and go see it live. The main MSU web is: www.montana.edu.

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An Elephant Never Forgets!

A friendly reminder that the annual dues to the FMC become due on October 1st, 2006. The dues are still only $15 per individual (or) immediate family. You can pay in two ways:

SEND A CHECK TO:

(made to) "Flatirons Mineral Club" (or) "FMC"
P.O. Box 3331
Boulder, CO 80307

(or) pay Gerry Naugle /Alex Cook, Treasurer (or) Chuck & Jan Buda, Membership Co-Chairs at any FMC monthly meeting. One of them is at the sign-in table upon entering the room for the monthly meetings. Your receipt is your new annual 2006-07 FMC membership card.

You can pay by CASH at an FMC meeting. Please do not send cash to the Club P.O. Box 3331 by USPS mail. Remember you can receive electronic (or) paper club newsletters containing the general meetings information, guided club field trips information, annual show opportunities, silent auction opportunities and an annual club summer picnic when you are a member of the Flatirons Mineral Club. The 2006-07 dues must be received by the club by Feb. 20th, 2007 in order to stay current on the newsletters and club member benefits.

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Flatirons Show Time
Charlotte Morrison

Where do you bring your mineral specimens and your crafts to share with the club and members of the public?  To the FMC annual show, this year in the main exhibits building of the Boulder County Fairgrounds at Nelson and Hover Roads in Longmont on Dec. 8th through the 10th, in combination with the Boulder Model Railroad Club on the December 9th and 10th.  Do your holidays shopping at our show. 

John Hurst has contacted many vendors and has them lined up to sell minerals, lapidary and gems at our show this year in addition to his own booth.  Many exhibit cases and sources of information, club table, demonstrations, flint knappers, gold panners and kid's area.  Bring your family and friends!    

 We need as many FMC member-volunteers as possible, please put on your club vest and patches and come on out and help the club in the many show functions.  Free attendance and a ticket stub for each hour worked, towards volunteer drawings on Sunday afternoon with some nice prizes for our group of volunteers, in addition to the hourly and the grand prizes for the public attendees and anyone wishing to enter those prize drawings, also.  We do expect a good turn out of attendees from the community at this year's show.

A large mineral map that the club owns is being set-up this year.  Be sure to come by and see it.  Thanks goes to Martha Towne and Rose Reynolds for doing this project this year.

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A Geological “Survey”

Pete Modreski of the USGS would like to conduct an informal survey about famous geological formations. Here is what he says:  This is for anyone who feels that they know enough about geology to participate with an answer, whether you consider yourself an "amateur", "professional", or anywhere in between, including the category of "know just enough to be dangerous".  My question follows: What, to you, is the best known (most familiar or famous) geologic rock formation name, (a) within the United States, and (b) in the rest of the world?  

The names you respond with should be a proper name that is the name of a rock formation or other rock unit (including either sedimentary, igneous, or metamorphic rocks). I don't want to give even one single real example here, because I don't  want to "put words in your mouth", but I will give imaginary examples; such as, the Gargantuan Granite, the Fullafossils Formation, the Semislippery Schist, the Little Lake Licorice Limestone, the Vulcan Volcanics, etc.  Send your responses to Pete at pmodreski@usgs.gov. We will publish the results in a future issue of the newsletter.

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Towel Show Winners

As in past years, this year’s Towel Show in November saw lots of fabulous specimens from both club and personal field trips and several lapidary and jewelry projects. Everyone enjoyed looking at the items that members brought and voting for their favorites.  This year’s senior winners were:

Best Club Field Trip:  Carol Codrescu for her display of Flattops fossils

Best Personal Field Trip:  Bill Reid for his Pikes Peak mineral specimens

Best Lapidary and Jewelry:  Bill Eads for his petrified wood

Ugliest Rock:  Deborah Knox for one really ugly rock

In the Junior Division, Toby Jon Shannon won for Best Personal Field Trip and Ugliest Rock. 

Dennis Gertenbach took home a ribbon for the Best Towel.

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South Platte River Field Trip

October 15th saw 19 club members at the South Platte River north of Denver collecting petrified wood and other minerals.  The Jr. Geologists planned and lead this trip for club members as part of their Field Trip badge. 

We had great weather for our last club collecting trip of 2006.  Everyone went home with petrified wood, agate, and other specimens found in the river gravel along the banks (and even in the river).  In addition to the rocks and minerals that were collected, one garter snake and one crawdad were found.  A special thanks to all the kids for planning a great trip.

Be sure to see the next newsletter for the trips planned for 2007.

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Jr. Geologists Fall Activities

It’s been a busy fall for the Jr. Geologist, working on both the Collecting and Field Trip badges.  They learned about how to properly label and store their specimens, and brought some of their collections to show the other kids.  They also planned the South Platte River field trip for the club, putting together the information sheet, taking care of the trip sign up, and collecting the releases from each participant. Those juniors completing these badges were:

Collecting Badge:  Lucas Simon, Sally Runions, Ricki Runions, Billie Anna Runions, Katherine Codrescu, Cara Keyser, and Keith Keyser

Field Trip Badge:  Joel Hyde, Lucas Simon, Sally Runions, Ricki Runions, Billie Anna Runions, Katie Runions, and Katherine Codrescu

The next Jr. Geologist meeting will be on Thursday, December 21st, where we will learn about minerals with unusual properties.  During the winter, we will be working on lapidary and jewelry projects.  The Jr. Geologists program is open to all club families and meets the third Thursday of each month.  For more information, contact Dennis Gertenbach.

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FMC’s First Rockhound Award

Joel Hyde has become the first Flatirons Mineral Club juniors to earn the American Federation of Mineralogical Society’s Rockhound Award. Joel is one of the original Jr. Geologists and has been active for the past 2½ years. To earn this award, Joel had to earn six of the nine Future Rockhounds of America badges. In earning these badges, Joel has made cabochons, learned to identify minerals and fossils, started his personal collection, put together a display case at last year’s club show, and help plan the South Platte River trip this fall. Many of our club members know Joel from the many club field trips he has attended. We congratulate Joel on a job well done.
 

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Jr. Geologists - Their Favorite Specimens

As part of earning their Collecting badge, the Jr. Geologists wrote about their favorite specimens in their collections.

My favorite rock is green calcite. The rock was found in Mexico.  The reason I picked this rock to write about is because I really like its color.  The piece I picked had some lines in it and is very smooth. The rock is see-through. Also, the lines inside it are yellowish color.  The actual color of the rock is greenish and turquoise. The only bad thing about my favorite rock is that I didn’t find it myself. Ricki Runions, age 12.

Selenite is my favorite rock because you can see through it and it sparkles so it’s pretty.  My second favorite is the fluorite, because it has layers of white and  purple.  I like to collect rocks, because it is fun and they have a lot of colors in them.  Cara Keyser, age 9

I like to use the pick ax to get samples out. Wear safety goggles to protect your eyes. Keith Keyser, age 6

My favorite gem is very special to me.  It is red and very sparkly.  It is outlined in white quartz and it has small quartz crystals possibly coated with iron oxide. It also has a tiny piece of rose quartz right by the actual crystal.  I found it at a pit full of quartz by Devil’s Head.  Billie Anna Runions, age 9

My favorite collecting trip was to Flattops, Colorado.  I found some fossils that I liked there.  My favorite fossil that I found was a snail.  My friend Dave helped me find it.  I also found some little cute cubes that I liked, so I took them home. Dennis calls them pseudomorphs of goethite after pyrite.  Katherine Codrescu, age 5

My rock collection has twenty rocks in it.  Although it is hard for me to pick a favorite, there is one that I do, if slightly, prefer above all the rest.  Made of mahogany obsidian, it is shaped like a small triangle.  This stunning piece of rock came from Siskiyou County, in the sunny state of California.  Unfortunately, I did not travel to find it.  My exquisite specimen came to me completely by chance. I remember the day well; I was searching among the grab bags at a mineral show,  when suddenly a bag seemed to jump in my hand.  It wasn’t particularly pretty or eye catching, but I bought it anyway.  When I opened the bag and all the specimens spilled out onto my lap, my favorite piece immediately caught my eye.  My favorite specimen in my collection certainly has an interesting story behind it, even if I only slightly favor it over my other specimens in my collection.  Sally Runions, age 14

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Meteor Streaks Across Southern Colorado!
 

During the evening of October 1st, a bright fireball was observed over Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado, lasting as long as 45 seconds.  It is estimated that the meteor was moving at about 13.2 km/sec, a very slow speed for meteors.  Several cameras captured the meteor breaking up into multiple pieces over the San Luis Valley, the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, Wet Mountain Valley and the Wet Mountains, Penrose, and Colorado Springs, to as far east as Ellicott.  The fireball was traveling generally southwest to northeast. It began in Arizona, northeast of Phoenix, traveled across northwestern New Mexico, and ended in Colorado east of Colorado Springs.  A witness in Cañon City reported that the fireball produced sonic booms several minutes later. 

For those interested in searching for meteorites from this fireball, the pathway across Colorado is prime hunting ground.   For more information and a map of the fireball’s path, see http://www.cloudbait.com/science/fireball20061001.html.

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Dinosaur fossil spills its guts, out come worms
 

WASHINGTON (Reuters, Oct. 24) -- They may have ruled the land and the seas 75 million years ago but even dinosaurs fell prey to the lowest of the low -- gut worms, scientists reported Monday.

An unusually well-preserved fossil of a duck-billed dinosaur dug up in Montana has revealed great detail of the animal's insides, including what appear to be tiny burrows that would have been made by worms, the team at the University of Colorado at Boulder found. They found more than 200 suspected parasite burrows that most likely were made by tiny worms similar to annelids and nematodes that infest animals today, said assistant geology professor Karen Chin.   "Fossil evidence for interactions between dinosaurs and invertebrates usually involves insects," said Chin. "This research is exciting because it provides evidence for the movement of tiny, soft-bodied organisms inside the gut cavity of a dinosaur."

Chin and graduate student Justin Tweet are presenting their findings to a meeting in Philadelphia of the Geological Society of America.   "Typically a carcass attracts multiple scavengers, and this one was largely undisturbed," Tweet said in a statement. "Since the carcass was apparently buried before it had a chance to fall apart, we think remnant parasites may have been living inside of the animal when it died." Duck-billed dinosaurs were plant-eaters, reaching up to 50 feet long and weighing up to three tons. This fossil, nicknamed "Leonardo", also revealed chewed-up plants in its gut, useful for helping to identify what dinosaurs ate. 

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Oldest Known Bee Found in Amber

A 100-million-year-old specimen has been found preserved in amber from a mine in northern Burma by researchers at the University of Oregon.  Recently reported in the journal Science, the ancient insect is at least 35-45 million years older than any other known bee fossil. It appears to share features with both bees and wasps, and supports theories of bee evolution.  Experts believe pollen-gathering bees evolved from carnivorous wasp ancestors. The new species has both waspish features, such as narrow hind legs, and bee characteristics such as body hairs. 

The fossil bee, named Melittosphex burmensis, is quite small, measuring only 3 mm across.  Its small size is consistent with evidence that many of the earliest flowers were also small.  With the arrival of pollinating bees, flowering plants blossomed on Earth; prior to 100 million years ago, the plant world was dominated by conifers, not flowering plants.  This fossil is helping paleontologists understand when and how wasps, which were mostly meat-eating carnivores, turned into bees that could pollinate plants.

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Largest North American Aquamarine Donated to Denver Museum
 

On November 17, the Denver Museum of Nature and Science unveiled its newest permanent mineral exhibit, a pocket of aquamarine and other mineral crystals discovered in 2004 on Mount Antero.  Prospector Stephen Brancato was preparing to dig for gemstones on his claim on the mountainside, when a 25-carat aquamarine crystal rolled down the hillside and hit him in the leg.  This led to the discovery of a cavity containing more than 100 aquamarine crystals, as well as other minerals.  Among the aquamarine, white feldspar, mica, garnets, and smoky quartz crystals in this pocket is the largest aquamarine specimen ever found in North America.  Stephen named his find Diane’s Pocket, after his mother.

Aquamarine is a variety of the mineral beryl (Be3Al2Si6O18) and is the official state gemstone of Colorado.  Like all beryls, aquamarines have a hexagonal crystal structure.  The world-famous Mount Antero aquamarines formed 35 million years ago, as high-pressure, mineral-rich magma intruded from below.  As the magma cooled, it trapped pockets of mineral-saturated, water-bearing fluid, heated to temperatures as hot as 600° C (1,112° F).  These formed cavities within the cooling magma, providing pockets for pegmatite minerals to crystallize.  The Mount Antero area is unique in Colorado, in that the super-hot solutions in this area contained beryllium, one of the elements that make up beryl.  Over millions of years, the mountains were uplifted and eroded, exposing the pockets and the crystals within them.

The cavity was not intact when Stephen found it and he brought down over 1,000 pounds of crystals, clay and rock.  Bryan Lees of Collector’s Edge Minerals in Golden was responsible for cleaning the crystals and reconstructing Diane’s Pocket for the current display.  The cleaning and reconstruction took about a year to complete. Epoxy was used to glue the crystals to the slabs of feldspar rock from the cavity walls. The finished display measures 37 by 25 inches and weighs about 100 pounds.

Diane’s Pocket joins the Alma King rhodochrosite crystal and other Museum specimens highlighting Colorado’s minerals and fossils.

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Upcoming Events, Nearby & Elsewhere 

Mon.-Fri. Dec. 4-8, Holiday Sale at the USGS Map Store, Building 810, Denver Federal Center, Lakewood CO.  All this coming week, all items in the sales shop are 15% off the regular prices.  This includes all USGS maps and publications, and all the other materials they stock from the Rocky Mountain Nature Association, Forest Service, and other sources (USFS maps, National Geographic maps, nature and hiking field guides, Audubon Society birds, CD's, puzzles, games, calendars, etc.  A great place to do some pre-Christmas shopping!  Call 303-202-4675 for info or directions. Also at the USGS Map Store, from now till Christmas, Free surplus topo maps for holiday wrapping paper are being given away!  "Available in bundles of 10, with a limit of three rolls per customer."  Just come in and ask.

Fri.-Sun., Dec. 8-10, Flatirons Gem and Mineral Show, sponsored by the Flatirons (Boulder) Gem and Mineral Society, Boulder County Fairgrounds Exhibit Building, 9595 Nelson Rd. (Nelson & Hover), Longmont, CO, Fri. 10-7, Sat. 9-6, Sun. 10-4. See http://bcn.boulder.co.us/community/fmc/fmcshow.htm Held in conjunction with the Boulder Model Railroad Club show too. [P.S., at 11 a.m. on Sunday at the show, there will be a slide presentation on "Pegmatites, Source of the World's Best Mineral Treasures", by Pete Modreski]

Dec. 9, Colorado Springs Mineralogical Society Silent Auction, another opportunity to buy interesting specimens and socialize with "people who like rocks". At the Silverwood Hotel (505 Popes Bluff Trail, just north of Garden of Gods Road a few blocks west of I-25 exit 146, Colorado Springs), 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.  All are welcome.

January 12-14, 2007: Denver Area Mineral Dealers first annual show. Featuring minerals, fossils, gemstones, lapidary supplies, and jewelry from 10 local vendors. Free admission and free parking. Daily door prizes. Holiday Inn Denver West, 14707 W. Colfax Ave., Golden, CO. Fri & Sat. 10:00 - 6:00, Sun 11:00 - 5:00.

February 23-25, 2007: Gem and Mineral Show, sponsored by the Denver Gem and Mineral Guild, Jefferson County Fairgrounds, Golden, CO.  Many very good exhibits. Contact: Dan Tomkus, 303-434-9423

March 3-4, 2007 WIPS (Western Interior Paletontological Society) Founders Symposium: Inscribed in Stone: Evolution and the Fossil Record; What's new, what's true, and how to teach it.  Green Center, Colorado School of Mines, Golden; see www.wipsppc.com; discount registration and continuing educ. credit available for teachers.

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Jade for Sale

Bob Wade from the Cheyenne, WY area has approximately one ton of mine run jade for sale.  There is no black jade and there is no apple green jade in this lot. He would like to sell the ton of jade as one lot.  Contact Bob Wade at 1-307-632-9018.

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Updated 12/11/06