****************

January and Spring 2009 Meeting Schedule

 January 8: FMC and WIPS member Donn Cook on Fossil Trilobites.

February 12: Ulli Limpitlaw of the University of Northern Colorado (UNC) Greeley on Minerals in Medicine.

March 12: Ed Raines will be giving a talk in March on Iron Mines of the Mesabi/Vermilion Ranges of Minnesota.

April 9: Spring Silent Auction.

May 14: Dr. Pete Modreski, USGS on the topic of Gems of Colorado (tentative).
 

****************
FMC Annual Show a Big Success

In spite of some bitter cold and snowy weather, the 2008 Annual Show at the Boulder County Fair Grounds in Longmont was a great success, thanks to the efforts of the Show Committee and the hours of many volunteers. Highlights included some of the best show cases we’ve ever had, excellent classes, interesting lectures, including one on “Alien Volcanoes”, and lots of activity at the Kids’ area (a record number of grab bags sold).

Exhibit Cases at 2008 Show - Judging Results

Cases Judging Subcommittee Chair, Gerry Naugle announces the case judging results. They are:

Senior Division
Best Jewelry - Ray Gilbert
Best Lapidary - Bob Johannes
Best Fossils - Jim Siegwarth and Jim Mayrath
Best Field Trip - Bill Hutchinson
Best Minerals - Cory Olin
Best of Show - Ed Raines

Junior Division
Best Fossils - Natsuki Takazawa
Best Lapidary - Lukas Simon
Best Field Trip - Shealene Kent
Best Minerals - Preston Dailey
Best of Show - Charles Mock

Ed Raines’ "Sr. Division Best of Show” case, a selection of spectacular agates.

Charles Mock’s Jr. Division “Best of Show” case, “What on Earth is a Pseudomorph?”

Youngsters learning to make cabochons under the expert tutelage of Shaula Lee and Terry O’Donnell

Grand Door Prize winner Colleen Attaway shown with 2008 Show Chair, Jan Buda

2008 Grand Door-Prize, an Agate Geode at about 35 lbs.

Ed Raines at the Mineral Identification Table

Cory Olin, with a Zeolite specimen

Digging for fossils in the Kids’ Area at the show

****************

Wednesday Nights at Charlotte’s

Lapidary Work/Grab Bag Samples Nights - Remember, use of the club's lapidary equipment, including saws and lapidary machines, is open to all club members every Wednesday night at Charlotte Morrison's home. Also on Wednesdays, help is always welcome to prepare grab bag specimens for next year's grab bags for the kids. Please contact Charlotte to let her know you are coming.
 

****************

Dinosaur Show at DMNS Ending January 4

September 26-January 4 - DINOSAURS, Ancient Fossils-New Discoveries, is the new special exhibit that has opened at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. Accompanying it is a new IMAX film, Dinosaurs Alive. Both the movie and the exhibit are excellent. For more info see the museum website.

****************

Juniors Study Fossils

The Junior Geologists have been studying fossils the past two months, completing the requirements for the Fossil Badge. They have been learning about the various geologic ages and the fossils that can be found during earth’s history.

The highlight was Dino Day in December. The juniors and their parents visited Dinosaur Ridge in Morrison, the Triceratops Trail in Golden, and finished making dinosaur cookies. These two areas have footprints of dinosaurs, mammals, birds, and insects, plus dinosaur bones. With a Geiger counter, we found that the dinosaur bones on the west side of Dinosaur Ridge are radioactive. We also found fossil plants, clams, burrows, and fish scale, and learned how the rocks tell the story of what it was like along the Front Range during the Age of the Dinosaurs.

The Jr. Geologists program is open to all Flatirons Mineral Club families. We meet on the third Thursday of each month, plus have special weekend activities from time to time. For more information about the Jr. Geologists program, please contact Dennis Gertenbach.

The juniors looking for fossils along Dinosaur Ridge

Sam Clement checking a dinosaur bone with a Geiger counter

Katherine Codrescu, Katie Runions, and Billie Anna Runions making dinosaur cookies
 

****************

Fossils in the News
Dennis Gertenbach

New Wooly Mammoth Theories

Two recently published studies have shed light on the migration and extinction of the wooly mammoth, one of the best-known ice age mammals.

Stephan Schuster at Penn State University led an international team that completed a large genetic study of muscle tissue and hair from frozen mammoth remains recovered in Siberia. Their study indicates that the population had split into two groups, which split more than 1 million years ago. One group died out 45,000 years ago. This was long before humans had appeared in the area, ruling out human hunting as the cause for their extinction. The most likely causes for their extinction were climate change or disease. Another important finding from this study was that each of the two woolly mammoth groups was very closely related. The low genetic diversity may have contributed to the extinction of these animals from changing environments or disease.

In a second genetic study of mammoth remains from both Asia and North America, researchers led by Hendrik Poinar of McMaster University in Ontario have provided new clues on the migration of wooly mammoths. Most researched believe that mammoths arrived in North America by crossing the land bridge from Asia. This created the two genetically distinct populations. Later, some of these North American animals migrated back to Siberia. This later group only became extinct about 10,000 years ago. Why this second group was able to live an additional 35,000 years is not known.

Killer Frog Ruled the Triassic

Fossils of a 15-foot amphibian predator from Antarctica have been recently been discovered. Kryostega collinsoni ruled the land 240 million years ago and had an extra set of teeth protruding from the roof of its mouth, helping it shred flesh and hold struggling prey. The animal resembled modern crocodiles but was actually a temnospondyl, a prehistoric amphibian that was an early relative of salamanders and frogs. Researchers have dubbed these animals “crocamanders.” Crocamanders died out at the extinction event at the end of the Triassic period.

At this time, Antarctica was located farther north than now. It was attached to South Africa, South America, and Australia, and was much warmer, covered by large rivers and primeval forests. Kryostega lived along freshwater rivers and lakes. With its side teeth longer than an inch and the teeth on the roof of its mouth an inch and a half high, Kryostega most likely took down anything within its reach, including large fish, amphibians, and even land animals.

Whales with Legs 

Fossils show that up to 40 million years ago, whales had legs and a tail, living on the land like other mammals.  At that time, they lost their legs, hips, and tails.  Their front legs became flippers and they developed flukes (tail fins) for an aquatic life.  A new study has pinpointed the time when whales lost their legs and tail and became aquatic animals.  Mark Uhen studied the fossil whale, Georgiacetus vogtlensis, found in Alabama and dated at 40 million years old.  The fossil showed that Georgiacetus had powerful hind legs, a tail, but no fluke.  It propelled itself in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico by wiggling its hips, moving its entire body up and down through the water.  Fossils of a 38 million year old fossil whale had developed flukes for better propulsion through the water.  This suggests that in just two million years, whales developed flukes and made the complete transition from land to sea.

Gap Between Fish and Land Animals Found

Paleontologists have long known that the first backboned land animals or tetrapods (ancestors of amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals) evolved from a group of fishes during the Devonian period about 370 million years ago. Fossils of tetrapod-like fishes and fish-like tetrapods have been found from this time; however, intermediate fossils between these two animals were missing

Two recently discovered fossils help fill this gap. In 2006 a tetrapod-like fish, Tiktaalik roseae, was discovered, it had many tetrapod features, but still had lobed fins. Thus, there was still a gap between this animal and the earliest true tetrapods, which had limbs rather than fins. This gap has been filled with a new fossil from Latvia, an extremely primitive tetrapod, Ventastega. This animal is more fish-like than other Devonian land animals, with a skill half way between Tiktaalik and other Devonian tetrapods. However, it had shoulders and a pelvis for walking on land, critical for true legs that walked on the land.

How Flatfish Evolved

One of the evolutionary puzzles that stumped Charles Darwin and has been used as ammunition by opponents of evolution is how the flatfish evolved. The issue is that adult flatfishes, which have both eyes on one side of the head, could not have evolved gradually. An intermediate skull, with the eyes partially migrated to one side, would not have held an evolutionary advantage. Also supporting this thought is that no such fish, either living or fossil, had ever been discovered with partially migrated eyes.

With the rediscovery of fossils hidden in several European museums for more than 100 years, this has changed. Several examples of such transitional forms were found from the Eocene epoch (about 50 million years ago). The fossils of two primitive flatfishes, Amphistium and Heteronectes, show a partial displacement of one eye, but the eye had not crossed the midline from one side of the fish to the other. Thus, fossil evidence has now been found to show this intermediate transition.

How the Turtle Got Its Shell

Paleontologists have long struggled to figure this one out, too. Two competing theories existed: either the shell grew as an extension of its ribs and spine or formed as bony plates from hardened skin (like modern-day crocodiles). A recently unearthed turtle fossil, the oldest on record, helps answer this question. This 220 million year old fossil indicates that the shell evolved as an extension of turtles' backbones and ribs. The 16-inch fossil, named Odontochelys semitestacea, was discovered in the Guizhou Province in southwestern China. It had a shell on its belly from its ribs. Researchers say the breast plate may have protected it from predators while swimming.

Why Crest on Duck-Billed Dinosaurs?

Duck-billed dinosaurs known as lambeosaurs lived 85 to 65 million years ago during the late Cretaceous period and are known for the bony crests on their heads. These crests often contain long, looping nasal passages, whose function has been debated by paleontologists for decades. According to recently published research, these bony crests may have been used to produce deep, haunting sounds. As the animals aged, the nasal passages within the crests changed, thus changing the voices made by these animals. This suggests that individuals may have recognized each other by the low-frequency voices produced by these crests. Scans of the animal’s inner ears reveal that their cochlea were sensitive enough to detect the low-frequency sounds produced by the crests.

New Center at Dinosaur National Monument

The National Park Service has announced that design work will start this month for a new visitor center at Colorado’s best-known fossil site. The Quarry Visitor Center, which houses the best preserved dinosaur quarry from the Jurassic period, has been closed for more than two years because of safety problems. The visitor center was completed in 1958 to shelter an exposed cliff face full of dinosaur bones discovered by the Carnegie Museum 1909. But the center was built on bentonite clay, which swells when wet and shrinks when it dries, causing foundation problems and leading to closing the center.

More than 1,500 dinosaur bones are housed in the center. Visitors and researchers have been frustrated that this premier fossil site has been closed for so long. Mary Risser, the monument's superintendent, estimated that the new center would cost $10 million. The design phase will take about a year to complete. The Park Service hopes that the construction money would be available for 2011; however, the project has not been funded.

 

****************

Rare Mineral Helps Track Ancient Climates
Dennis Gertenbach

With today’s interest in global warming, researchers turn to the past to learn more about the effects of increasing global temperatures on plants and animals. Geologists Tim Lowenstein and Robert Demicco at Binghamton University are helping other researchers learn more about past global warming by using nahcolite, a rare mineral containing sodium carbonate and bicarbonate.

Nahcolite only forms under conditions of very high atmospheric CO2 levels. Mineral samples of nahcolite were formed during the Eocene epoch, the warmest period on earth in the last 65 million years. Thus, nahcolite from the Eocene shows that this warm period of earth’s history happened when the atmospheric CO2 levels were at least 1,125 parts per million (ppm), which is three times the current levels of 380 ppm. This provides direct evidence that increasing CO2 levels have coincided with increasing world temperature in the earth’s past. What this correlation does not tell us is if global temperatures in the coming centuries will compare to the hothouse Eocene or how hot it will get from manmade CO2. However, a study of the Eocene does give us a picture of what changes are possible from global warming.

As a side, it is interesting to note that Colorado has large deposits of nahcolite in the Green River formation from the Eocene period. These deposits have been mined to produce both sodium carbonate (soda ash) and sodium bicarbonate (baking soda). Nahcolite from Colorado has also been used to remove sulfur dioxide from coal-burning power plants.
 

****************

Blue diamond sells for record $24.3 million
Bob King

A rare blue diamond handed down through generations of German royalty sold for a record $24,300,000 at auction Wednesday in London. The Wittelsbach Diamond, a 35.56 carat cushion-shaped gem, has often had its color and clarity compared to the famed Hope Diamond which is on display at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.


****************

Rocky Mountain Micromineral Association
Judy Knoshaug

There is a new mineral group in town. It is the Rocky Mountain Micromineral Association. This group is only a few months old and has microminerals as its focus. This is an informal group – no dues, no officers, no newsletter. The group meets on the second Sunday of the month from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. at the Colorado School of Mines Museum. The meetings are informal but future meetings may have programs on topics concerning microminerals. Microscopes and free microminerals are available at the meetings. Although it would probably be helpful to have a microscope, there is no requirement to do so. Anyone is welcome to attend and discover the amazing world of microminerals. The next meeting is Sunday, December 14, 2008. If you are interested or wish to broaden you mineral horizon, please come. For further information, contact Richard Parsons, 303-838-8859.

****************

Upcoming Events, Nearby & Elsewhere

Jan. 31-Feb. 14, Arizona Mineral & Fossil Show (Martin Zinn Expositions). 450 dealers in 4 venues. See www.mzexpos.com for details.

Feb. 12-15, Tucson Gem & Mineral Show, Mineral Oddities, Tucson Convention Center. See http://www.tgms.org/showinfo.htm for details.

Feb. 27-Mar. 1, Denver Gem and Mineral Guild, Jewelry, Gem & Mineral Show. Jefferson County Fairgrounds, 15200 W. 6th Ave, Golden (W. 6th Ave & Indiana). Fri 10 a.m.-6 p.m., Sat. 10 a.m.-6 p.m., Sun. 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Free admission.

Mar. 27-29, Fort Collins Rockhounds’ 48th Annual Gem & Mineral Show, featuring Nature’s Treasures. Fri 4-8 p.m., Sat 9 a.m.-6 p.m., Sun 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Gem & mineral dealers, exhibits, door prizes, silent auction, demonstrations, grab bags. Admission $3 daily or $5 for 3-day pass (adults), $1 for students age 12-18 with ID, or children under 12 free when accompanied by adult. Lincoln Center, 419 W. Magnolia, Ft. Collins. For details, see www.fortcollinsrockhounds.org.

Apr.24-26, Colorado Mineral & Fossil Show (Martin Zinn Expositions), Holiday Inn 4849 Bannock Street, Denver. See www.mzexpos.com for details.

****************

Appeal for Educators’ Specimens
Pete Modreski, USGS, 303-202-4766

As many of you know, at the USGS we maintain a "Rock Room" with free giveaway surplus rock and mineral samples for teachers, and we keep it as well stocked as we can with material from broken-up surplus drill core, things I or others from the USGS have collected on field trips, donated material, etc. All educators, of any sort and level, are always welcome to come here and pick up and keep whatever specimens will be useful to them for teaching about rocks and minerals in their classrooms.

We have good supplies of some things (especially the common rock types), but there are some fairly common minerals that we sometimes have a stock of, but are pretty much "out of" right now, and that perhaps some of you, individuals or clubs, might be able to help by donating to us. Here are some of the minerals that our giveaway bins are pretty much empty of right now, and of which we could certainly use any extra material that anyone might have: Pyrite, Barite, Quartz crystals, Gypsum, Magnetite, Garnet, Galena, Schorl (black tourmaline)

The kinds and sizes of material that we try to keep on hand to give away to teachers are often similar to what clubs put into their grab bags, though they can be larger. The specimens can be anywhere from about 1/2 inch to 2 or 3 inches in size, and of course crystal specimens can be smaller than massive pieces of rock. Just to comment further on the things I've listed above, we can particularly use: pyrite (most any kind); barite (from Hartsel or elsewhere); quartz crystals (small smoky or any other crystals from Lake George, Arkansas, or most anywhere; we do have plenty of massive and broken quartz); and gypsum/selenite from Oklahoma, Utah, or anywhere else. We will, of course, be happy to accept any number of specimens, but to have a supply that will last for a while, it would certainly be good to have 50, 100 or more pieces of each item. And of course, if you have something else that I haven't listed here, chances are we can use it, too. About the only minerals that we almost always have enough of and probably don't need, are agate, petrified wood, massive quartz, mica, feldspar, and halite (we get the halite from drill core). We have plenty of common microcline feldspar, but any amazonite that show a reasonable color to be an example of this variety, would be a good to have.

****************

Calendar of Events

Jan. 8 - FMC Club Meeting, 7:00 PM, West Boulder Senior Center, 9th & Arapahoe, Boulder. Donn Cook on Fossil Trilobites.

Jan. 15 -  Junior Geologists Meeting, 6:30 PM Charlotte Morrison’s house, Boulder.

Jan. 26 - FMC Board Meeting, 7:15 p.m., Charlotte Morrison’s house, Boulder.

Feb. 12 - FMC Club Meeting, 7:00 PM, West Boulder Senior Center, 9th & Arapahoe, Boulder. Ulli Limpitlaw on Minerals in Medicine

Feb. 19 - Junior Geologists Meeting, 6:30 PM Location to be announced.

Feb 23 - FMC Board Meeting, Tantra Lake Apts. Clubhouse (1000 W. Moorhead Cir.,  Boulder, 80305) Questions? Contact Gerry N.

Mar. 12 - FMC Club Meeting, 7:00 PM, West Boulder Senior Center, 9th & Arapahoe, Boulder. Ed Raines on Minnesota Iron Mines (tentative)

Mar 27-29 - Fort Collins Gem & Mineral Show, Lincoln Center, Fort Collins. 48th Annual Show

****************

Return to Facets Index

Return to Flatirons Mineral Club Home Page

Return to Boulder Community Network home page

Updated 1/6/09