Flatirons Mineral Club Field Trips

 

·         Unless otherwise stated, trips take place on Saturday or Saturday and Sunday.

·         Due to liability concerns, field trips are open only to FMC members and their guests. Nonmembers may attend only as personal guests of individual members.

·         Please RSVP to the field trip leader or designated contact person as early as you can to make planning easier.

·         Because many of the trips are on private land and claims, we must abide by any restrictions they choose to set.

·         You must RSVP to go on a trip. Sign up at any meeting or contact the trip leader before the day of the trip.

·         Unless it is cleared with the trip leader in advance, start times are firm.

·         If you find you can’t go on a trip you’ve RSVPd for, please let the leader know if at all possible.

·         All participants are expected to abide by the AFMS Rockhound Code of Ethics.

 

 

 

 We would love to have two field trips a month throughout the summer, but we need more volunteers to lead trips. Perhaps you have a favorite place to go collecting that you would like to share with club members, or maybe there’s a new place that you’d like to explore with others in the club, or pick a collecting place out of one of the Colorado collecting books and have other club members join you.  If this sounds like you, consider leading or co-leading a trip for the club.  Leading a trip is pretty simple, you just need to select a place and date, promote the trip and get club members to sign up, collect the liability releases from participants, and go out and have a good time.  For more information about leading a trip, or to suggest a trip, please contact Anita Colin or Gabi Accatino.

 

All trip information and sign-up sheets will be available at club meetings or contact Anita.

 

Planning Your Own Field Trips
 
Colorado is blessed with many, many areas of geologic interest. When planning you summer trips to visit our beautiful state, consider adding a stop or two to learn more about Colorado geology and perhaps do some collecting. One resource for discovering is the Colorado Geological Survey’s publication, Rock Talk. This newsletter is devoted to “Colorado’s Magnificent POGIs” or places of geological interest. There are 20 pages of place to go and see dinosaurs and fossils, minerals, mining history and mine tours, scenic geological sites and activities, and cave tours.  If you would like to find collecting places in Colorado, Pete Modreski of the USGS has published a great article. The article describes many collecting sites in the state, plus recommends several books that list collecting localities. Another source of collecting places is http://www.peaktopeak.com/colorado/index.php3, which lists areas by location and mineral. And, don’t forget one of the best sources for collecting ideas – our own club members.

 

If you found some great specimens at one of our club field trips, or on a trip of your own, please bring them to the next club meeting to show others. Everyone enjoys learning where to collect specimens and what can be found.

 

Remember:  While you are out collecting this summer, pick up specimens for grab bags.  Each year we need nearly 10,000 specimens for the grab bags we fill.  The money earned selling grab bags is used for college scholarships for geology students.

 

 

2011 Field trips

Please contact Anita Colin for more details or to sign up for the trips.

 

We are still looking for great places to go and for field trip leaders for this summer.  Please contact Gabi Accatino or Anita Colin if you have an idea for a field trip or you would like to lead a trip.

 

 

May 28-30 (Memorial Day Weekend) – Yellow Cat, UT and Book Cliffs, Grand Junction, CO, seeking barite, calcite, fossil wood, and pseudomorph jasper. Contact: Anita Colin. 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.

 

 

August 6 (Saturday) – Flat Tops, CO, seeking fossils. Trip leader: Anita Colin.

 

August 13 (Saturday) – Arnold Gulch (Chaffee County), CO, seeking agate & jasper. Trip leader: Craig Hazelton.

 

August 14 (Sunday) – Missouri Hill (near Salida), CO, seeking quartz, magnetite, & skarn minerals. Trip leader: Gabi Accatino.

 

September 3 (Saturday) – Crawford, NE, seeking Fairburn Agate.

 

October 1 (Saturday) – Tepee Buttes, CO (east of Pueblo), seeking Cretaceous marine fossils, including clams and ammonites. Trip leader: Dennis Gertenbach.

 

 

Future trips, proposed & in development:

 

TBA  Red Feather Lakes, CO, seeking amethyst.

TBA  Rt. 93 Quarry seeking fossils.

TBA  Rawlings, WY, seeking sapphire & corundum with CMS

TBA  Socorro Symposium , Socorro, NM, for exhibits, talks, field trips.

TBA  Clear Creek, CO,  Gold Panning with CMS.

 

 

2011 trips past:

 

February 25 (Friday) – NOAA Research Labs, 325 Broadway, Boulder , CO.  4 p.m.  Trip leader: Anita Colin. The main event will be a showing of “Science on a Sphere” by NOAA Executive Director and club member Don Mock.  The show includes demonstrations of continental drift, ocean currents, and global warming.  Don will lead an optional tour of the facilities after the show.  You must sign up ahead of time to be admitted to the NOAA campus.  A current, government-issued photo ID is required for entry.  If you are a foreign national, you will need your passport or green card (and let us know beforehand).  Contact Anita Colin to sign up.  The tour limit is 25 people so don’t wait until the last minute!

 

March 12 (Saturday) – Colorado School of Mines Geology Museum, 13th and Maple, Golden, CO. We will meet at 10 AM at the museum for a tour. Trip Leader: Anita Colin.

 

April 23 (Saturday) – North Table Mountain, Golden, CO. seeking zeolites. Trip Leader: Dennis Gertenbach. North Table Mountain 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. (snow date May 7)

 

May 21 (Saturday) – Two Creeks, North of Sterling, CO, seeking Blue Barite. Trip leaders: Mel and Charlotte Bourg. Contact: Gabi Accatino. Mel and Charlotte 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.

 

May 22 (Sunday) – Holcim Quarry, Florence, CO, seeking fossils & pyrite with CMS. Trip leader: Gabi Accatino

 

June 4 (Saturday) – Lake George, CO, seeking topaz. Trip leaders: Anita Colin and Gabi Accatino.  For all of you who missed the topaz hunt last year, we will be going again to Joe Dorris' Topaz claim. $40 fee, currently waitlisting.

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June 5 (Sunday) – Hartsel, CO, seeking barite with CMS.Trip leader: Anita Colin.

 

June 11 (Saturday)   Nederland, CO, seeking gold, silver, and related minerals. Trip leader: Gabi Accatino. Tom Hendricks has invited us to visit his Caribou Mine dumps.

 

June 18 (Saturday) – Calumet Mine, CO, seeking epidote, actinolite, & quartz  with CMS. Trip leader: Gabi Accatino.

 

June 19 (Sunday) – Sedalia, CO, seeking garnet, magnetite, & copper minerals with CMS. Trip leader: Gabi Accatino. Limit 10.

 

June 25-26 – Shirley Basin, WY, seeking agate. Trip leader: Gabi Accatino.

 

July 8 (Friday) – Route 93 Quarry, seeking fossils. Trip leader: Anita Colin.

 

July 9 (Saturday) – State Bridge, CO, seeking pyrite. Trip leader: Gabi Accatino.

 

July 23 (Saturday) Trip 1 – Leadville , CO, seeking orthoclase feldspar. Trip leader: Betsy Lehndorff.

 

July 23 (Saturday) Trip 2 – Joe Dorris' Claim at Crystal Peak, seeking amazonite. Trip leader: Anita Colin.

 

July 30-31 – Mount Antero, CO, seeking blue beryl with CMS. Trip leader: Gabi Accatino.

 

 

 

 

 

Check out previous years' field trips

 

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Updated 8/9/11