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President’s
Corner
Evan D. Elliott
Spring is in the air and I imagine soon a few shovels and picks will be
too. It’s about this time of the year when I long for the sun’s southern
repose to definitively end. Our last February meeting was fascinating.
Markus Raschke presented us with a beautiful exposé of a couple of his
Washington adventures entitled "Rain and minerals - collecting
adventures in the Pacific Northwest Cascades". I do so enjoy seeing
such a fine example of science in conjunction with the adventurous spirit
of human experience well documented for others to share in. Thank you
Markus!
I remember, some years ago, the
junior geologists program was just an idea…Well look at it now! Our
youngest members’ participation in this program demonstrates the never
ending interest “in all aspects of earth science and associated hobbies”.
Dennis Gertenbach’s commitment to our club and especially the juniors is a
profound demonstration of kindness and generosity. We are fortunate to have
such a complete representation of all generations in our organization. The
hands on activities offered to juniors by The Flatirons Mineral Club are
unique developmental opportunities in these times of “high tech”
entertainment. I have always been an advocate of hands-on experience. The
earth sciences certainly provide this for us. Educational and fun for the
kids too. Thanks to all members for keeping our club going strong.
See you all soon,
Best regards,
****************
Upcoming Club Programs
March
10: We are pleased to have Joe Dorris as our speaker in March. Joe has been
bringing out museum-quality amazonite and smoky quartz specimens from his
claims outside of Florissant, Colorado, for a number of years. Having
located a number of significant mineral pockets in the Pikes Peak
pegmatites, Joe and his family have brought to light dozens of spectacular
specimens with amazing color, great luster and fantastic combinations of other minerals - simply some
of the best ever found.
April
14: This will be our annual silent
auction. This is a great opportunity to thin your collections and make
room for the next collecting season. It’s not too early to start sorting
and labeling. We’ll have tables heaped with treasure, something for
everyone. There will be special tables reserved for the youth. Then comes
the fun part, bidding on the cool stuff everyone else brought. This is our
second largest fund raiser of the year. Bid slips will be available on site
and online.
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2011 Field Trips Schedule
Anita
and Gabi are feverishly working on the field trip schedule for 2011 because
they can’t wait to get out there again! How about you? Sign-up sheets for
the March and April field trips will be available at the March club
meeting. Here is a list of the trips that have been scheduled to date:
Saturday, March
12: Colorado School of Mines Geology Museum Tour. We will meet at 10 AM at
the museum at 13th and Maple in Golden. Trip Leader and Contact: Anita Colin.
Saturday,
April 23 (snow date May 7): North Table Mountain for Zeolites. North Table
Mountain, outside of Golden, is a world-famous locality for zeolites, a
series of alumina-silicate minerals. You are sure to find thomsonite,
analcime, and chabazite, plus the possibility of less common minerals. This
is a great place for kids, because everyone will find great specimens. The
trip involves a hike of about 3/4 mile with a 700-foot elevation climb.
Trip Leader and Contact: Dennis
Gertenbach.
Saturday,
May 21: Two Creeks, North of Sterling, for Blue Barite. Mel and Charlotte
Bourg will be leading this trip. They like to go to Two Creeks in the
spring and especially if it is, or was, a wet spring. They say that the
barite shows up better. The quality of barite is different from the barite
found at the Stoneham site. Two Creeks is BLM land and they have found some
pretty nice specimens. Trip Contact: Gabi Accatino.
Memorial
Day Weekend, May 28-30: Yellow Cat, UT and Book Cliffs, Grand Junction, CO.
Head west for one, two, or three days and hope for dry weather! We will try
for Book Cliffs barite and calcite near Grand Junction on Saturday (dry
roads required!) and then head to eastern Utah (just south of I-70 near
Cisco) for Yellow Cat Flats black and white fossilized wood and pseudomorph
jasper. Trip Contact: Anita Colin.
Saturday,
June 4: Joe Dorris’ Claim, Near Lake George for Topaz. For all of you who
missed the topaz hunt last year, we will be going again to Joe Dorris'
Topaz claim. Trip Contact: Anita
Colin.
Saturday,
June 11: Miner Tom’s Caribou Mine Dumps for Gold, Silver and Related
Minerals. Tom Hendricks has invited us to visit his Mine Dumps. Trip Leader
and Contact: Gabi Accatino.
Put
these trips on your calendar! Right now, before you forget!
Summer
(May -- September) Trips: All trip information and sign-up sheets will be
available at the May club meeting or contact Anita.
Field
Trip Suggestions and Trip Leader Volunteers: Contact Anita or Gabi.
****************
Program Speakers
If
you attended our club meetings in January and February you know that we
have started the year with two great talks!
In January Tom Hendricks came down from Caribou to share his stories
and plans for the Cross Gold Mine and the Caribou Mine. And then a new
member to our club, Markus Raschke, presented a wonderful talk about
minerals in Washington State for our February program.
So,
we’re batting a thousand! Next on deck for March is Joe Dorris, speaking on
Teller Co. (Pikes Peak) pegmatites (see p. 1). We know Joe from visiting
his topaz and amazonite claims in the summers. He is also an author and
artist. He is sure to present a lively talk. His website is: http://www.pinnacle5minerals.com/HomePin5/HomePinnacle5.htm.
Please
plan to attend our meeting in March to enjoy Joe’s talk, and please help us
continue to present fun and interesting programs for our club meeting. All
suggestions will be considered. Contact Gabi or Anita.
****************
Junior
Geologist Scholarship Fund
When
you attended our Show in December, you may have noticed the sale of
“Naughty or Nice Gift Coal” in the Kids’ Area. Well, the funds received
from the sale of those bags of coal were the beginnings of a new
scholarship fund specifically for our Junior Geologists. The fund has been
established to insure that all kids who want to go on field trips –
especially to those sites that require an admission charge – will be able
to go. The fund will also be used for supplies that the Jr. Geologists
leaders feel are necessary to enrich the kids’ meetings.
Scholarship
request forms will be available from the Jr. Geologists leaders as we get
closer to the field trip season. Contact Anita Colin for more information.
The
board wishes to thank Anita and
Gabi for their hard work
on this project. And, to Dennis
Gertenbach for running the FMC Junior's program.
****************
Grab Bag
Fabric Needed!
Anita
Colin
Thanks
to Adele Accatino and her sewing machine, we have quite a few grab bags
available for filling this year, but we are in need of more fabric to
continue production. We need fabric scraps that are 8 1/2 by 11 inches,
preferably non-pink and non-flowery. (We have lots of those already!)
If you would like
to pre-cut them to this size, that would be great, or just bring the fabric
to our regular club meetings at the West Senior Center on the second
Thursday of each month. You can also drop off your donation on the porch at
2334 Bluff Street in Boulder. Thank you!
****************
Calling all rocks!
We
are always in need of rock specimens to put in our grab bags. They don’t need to be fancy or numerous
or tiny. Just label what they are (if
you know) and where you collected them (if you remember) and we will do the
rest. Bring them to our regular
meeting at the West Senior Center on the second Thursday of each month or
drop them off on the porch at 2334 Bluff Street in Boulder. Thank you!
****************
100-ounce gold nugget recently found in California
http://geology.com/news/2011/giant-gold-nugget-the-100-ouncewashingtonnugget.shtml?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Geologycom+%28Geology.com%29
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Jr. Geologists Visit the Western Museum of Mining
and Industry
In
January, the Jr. Geologists traveled to Colorado Springs to take part in
the Family Exploration Day at the museum with kids from other rock clubs.
During the day, the juniors learned about mining and industrial technology,
geology, and the environment. Special guided tour of the museum taught the
juniors much more about the rich mining history of Colorado and the
American West. The tour showed the kids how ore was mined underground, how
it was assayed for gold, what equipment the miners used, and how the miners
lived and worked in the mines of Colorado a hundred years ago. They also
learned about ice age fossils of mammoths and pollen from the Florissant
Fossil Beds National Monument, identifying mammoth teeth and ice-age plant
pollen. Everyone got to try their hand at gold mining and Isaiah Cormier
found a real gold nugget!!
Learning
about mining techniques years ago.
Gavin
Morrison and his grandfather, Quinn and Isaiah Cormier panning for gold
****************
Jr.
Geologists Activities
In
March, the Jr. Geologists will wrap up their study of rocks and minerals,
using the skills they learned over the past several months to identify
different minerals. This will complete their requirements for the Rocks and
Minerals Badge. Starting this month, we will meet at a new location, the
Reynolds Branch of the Boulder Public Library at 3595 Table Mesa Drive,
just west of Broadway. Meetings will continue to start at 6:30.
There
are two other upcoming activities for Jr. Geologists families.
•
Field Trip to the Colorado School of Mines Geology Museum, Saturday, March
12. The club will have a special tour of the CSM Geology Museum in Golden
at 10 am. The museum was started in 1874 and displays mineral, fossil,
gemstone, meteorite, and historic mining artifact exhibits on two floors.
Included are specimens from many Colorado mining districts, other global
localities, fossils, gemstones, meteorites, ultraviolet minerals, and an
underground mine. This is a great place to see lots of neat minerals and
fossils. For more information about the trip and to sign up, please contact
Anita Colin.
•
Crystal Growing, Saturday, March 26 and Sunday, March 27. Come learn about
crystals and how they grow. Everyone will get to grow several types of
crystals. For the younger kids (9 and younger), there will be two sessions
on March 26, one between 10 am and noon and the second between 2 and 4 pm.
For the older kids (10 and older), we will meet on Sunday, March 27 between
2 and 4 pm. As space is limited, please sign up with Dennis for the session
you want to attend. The Jr. Geologists program is open to all Flatirons
Mineral Club families. Each month we learn more about geology, plus earn
badges for different earth science activities. For information about the Jr.
Geologists program, please contact Dennis
Gertenbach.
Gerry
Naugle works with Elijah Buckner and Preston Daley to identify different
minerals.
Several
of the Jr. Geologists put together hardness kits to identify minerals.
The older Jr.
Geologists use various techniques for mineral identification
****************
An Update on the Snowmass Fossil Discovery
Dennis Gertenbach
During
an excavation to expand Ziegler Reservoir near Snowmass Village last fall,
a bulldozer operator made a fabulous discovery – bones of a mammoth in the
peat bog. Snowmass Water and Sanitation District officials, owners of the
reservoir, soon called the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. They
negotiated an agreement for the museum to recover of the fossils from the
site and to preserve these fossils at the museum.
Each
day, the museum staff and volunteers made one amazing discovery after
another. A processing crew at the site took the bones and washed them with
warm water and toothbrushes. The bones were then wrapped in wet paper
towels, slipped into plastic bags, and placed in cold storage. Larger
fossils, including tusks and skulls, and smaller fragile bones were encased
in plaster of Paris and burlap jackets. The fossils were then transported
back to Denver for further presentation and study. The fossils must dry out
very slowly to prevent them from disintegrating.
The
museum scientists and volunteers worked for a month at the site until the
snow and cold weather forced them to shut down. They have returned to the
museum in Denver for the next phase of scientific analysis.
Dr.
Kirk Johnson, Vice President of Research and Collections and Chief Curator
at the museum, has described this as one of the most important Ice Age
discoveries in the Rocky Mountains. The fossils here are not preserved as
stone, but are in their original form preserved in the deep peat bog.
Museum
workers recovered more than 500 bones from 8-10 American mastodons, four
Columbian mammoths, four ice-age bison including one skull with 7-foot horn
span, two ice-age deer, and the first Jefferson's ground sloth ever found
in Colorado. Fossils from a tiger salamander were found inside the hollow
portion of a mastodon tusk. The sloth, described as the most surprising
find of the site, was the size of a full-grown grizzly. Dr. Johnson refers
to the finds as “an ice-age menagerie.”
The
site is so rich that just a handful of peat reveals ancient seeds, pollen,
cones, and leaves that are still green. White spruce, subalpine fir, sedges
and other plants have been identified. There are beaver-chewed sticks,
iridescent beetles, snails, and microscopic crustaceans called ostracods.
Scientists
are excited about what the site will tell us about last ice age in the
Rockies. The abundance of bones was made possible in large part because
this is an ancient watering hole that remained over a long period of time.
This high-altitude lake filled up very slowly with layer after layer of
wind-blown sediment, preserving the ecosystem from about 45,000 to 150,000
years ago. From the fossils found in the various layers, scientists now
have a better picture of how the climate changed in the high Rocky
Mountains over this period of time.
In
the lower levels of the peat deposit, the mastodon fossils were found.
Mastodons have conical projections on their teeth which were adapted for
browsing shrubs and tree branches and leaves. Coupled with the types of
plant and pollen fossils in these same layers, scientists can tell that the
environment during the earlier period was much warmer and wetter, giving
the hardwood forests in which the mastodons lived. The mammoths were found
in the upper layers of the peat bog. Their teeth were designed to graze on
grasses, which are found in abundance in the fossil plants and pollen. By
this time, the forests in the high Rockies were mostly replaced by grasses
and sedges, representing a much cooler and dryer climate.
Lots
more fossils are waiting to be unearthed, and the museum is currently
making plans to resume excavations in late spring. The fossil excavations
are expected to wrap up in October 2011.
The
tooth in the jaw of a one of the Columbian mammoths found at the site.
(Credit: Helen H. Richardson/ The Denver Post)
Several
of the fossils found at the site, including the tusk of one of the
mastadons in the back, a part of a bison horn, and a mastodon tooth in
front. (Credit: Helen H. Richardson/ The Denver Post)
The
tooth of an ice age deer from the site. (Credit: Denver Museum of Nature
and Science)
Museum
volunteer washing a jaw fossil from the site. (Credit: Denver Museum of
Nature and Science)
An
ice-age bison skull with horns unearthed at the site. (Credit: Denver
Museum of Nature and Science)
****************
Rock Collection for Sale
My mother is
selling her many years of "rock collecting" and closing her shop.
We live in Loveland Co. and I am emailing for her as she does not use the
computer. She has 32 plastic tubs full of rock of all kinds including
semi-precious gemstone rock, agates of all kinds, jade, malachite,
Rhodocrosite, tiger eye, rough faceting material, Idaho garnets, petrified
wood, crazy lace, Indian Paint rock, Varascite, finished cabs, and much more,
all high grade. Contact Glenda at mailto:gdurnil@msn.com
****************
Upcoming Events,
Nearby & Elsewhere
Mar 18-20, Albuquerque Gem and Mineral Show: Treasures of the Earth TotE
2011. Theme: BLUE MINERALS. Creative
Arts Center, New Mexico State Fairgrounds, San Pedro Dr., NE, Entrance
4. Raffles, Silent Auction, Door
Prizes. Over 40 dealers.
Mar.
25-27, Fort
Collins Rockhounds Club Gem and Mineral Show featuring Pyrite, at The
Ranch in the Thomas M. McKee 4-H building, Larimer County Fairgrounds, 5280
Arena Circle, Loveland [new location for just this year; normally in
downtown Fort Collins].
Sat.
& Sun. March 26 & 27, Hands of Spirit Gallery 14th Annual Spring
Mineral and Jewelry Open House from 11:00 am to 5:00 pm. You're sure to find an incredible
selection of the finest crystal and mineral specimens, stone carvings, and
a lovely selection of jewelry. Refreshments will be served. Call 303-541-9727 for directions and
further information or visit http://www.handsofspirit.com.
Friday, April 8, North Jeffco Gem and
Mineral Club Silent Auction; APEX Community Recreation Center at 6842
Wadsworth Blvd., Arvada. Setup begins at 5:30 PM; Auction starts at 6:45
PM; Buy or sell mineral specimens, fossils, cutting materials, finished
stones, jewelry, books, crafts, tools, and baked goods. Seller code, buyer
numbers, and bid sheets will be available at the door or prior to the
auction from chairman Ron Knoshaug,
303-423-2923,.
April
22-24, Colorado Mineral and Fossil Show, Holiday Inn, 4849 Bannock St,
Denver. 65 top quality mineral and fossil dealers; Minerals, Fossils,
Meteorites, Gems, Beads, Decorator Items. Free admission, free parking,
Wholesale, Retail, Open to the Public.
Martin Zinn Expositions, www.mzexpos.com.
Special outings offered by the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.
Call 303-370-6000 for more information and to make reservations.
May 26-30 Geology by Canoe on the Green River Paddle a 60-mile
section of the Green River, from Crystal Geyser to Mineral Bottom, just
north of Canyonlands National Park, with geologist and research associate
Bob Raynolds, PhD. This is one of the longest stretches of quiet wilderness
water in the lower 48 states. Enjoy hiking and exploring this beautiful
area, as you experience Western history in an area first documented by John
Wesley Powell in 1869. $580 adult, $555 child (ages 6-12)
July 15-17 Geology by Sea Kayak on the Colorado River. Geologists
travel from all over the world to visit the spectacular canyon country of
the Colorado Plateau, near Ruby and Horsethief Canyons. These
magnificent rock formations feature
majestic walls of red sandstone. A Museum geologist will answer your
questions and explain how the beautiful canyons got there as you paddle
your sea kayak along the river. $360 adult, $325 child (ages 6-12)
August 5-7 Dinosaurs by Canoe. Imagine canoeing along the Gunnison
River during the age of the dinosaurs. What an adventure! Let your mind
time travel on this trip, as collections manager Jeff Stephenson guides you
through this spectacular geological area. Jurassic and Cretaceous
formations along the river may hold evidence of these amazing creatures
from 140 to 90 million years ago. $360 adult, $325 child (6-12)
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Calendar of Events
Mar.
10 FMC Club Meeting, 7:00 PM, West
Boulder Senior Ctr, 9th & Arap. Joe Dorris on Pikes Peak pegmatites
Mar.
17 Junior Geologists Meeting, George Reynolds Branch Library, Table Mesa Dr.
& Broadway, Boulder, 6:30 p.m. Contact Dennis Gertenbach
Mar
24 FMC Show Committee Meeting, Clover
Admin Building at the Boulder County Fairgrounds, Longmont, 7:00pm—Volunteers
welcome!
Mar.
28
FMC Board Meeting, Hallie
Cook’s House, 7:15 p.m.
Apr.
14 FMC Club Meeting, 7:00 PM, West
Boulder Senior Ctr, 9th & Arap. Annual Silent Auction.
Apr.
21 Junior Geologists Meeting. George Reynolds Branch Library, Table Mesa Dr.
& Broadway, 6:30 p.m.. Contact Dennis
Gertenbach
Apr.
25 FMC Board Meeting. Kristi
Traynor’s house, 7:15 p.m.
****************
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Updated 3/10/11
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