The Start

In 1935, a Depression-era government works program allowed the Milwaukee Public Museum (MPM) to continue operations and provide much-needed jobs to local unemployed workers. These new employees spent their days preparing the Museum’s Earth Sciences displays. In the evenings, they held meetings in their homes to learn more about the rocks, minerals, and fossils.

With the MPM offering use of its Trustee Room for meetings and the Milwaukee Journal providing publicity, the non-profit Wisconsin Geological Society was formed in early 1936.

Branching Out

The newly-found box revealed how active the WGS was in building a solid foundation for its club and also for clubs across the country to connect. For instance, in 1940, the WGS was one of three clubs involved in the creation of the Midwest Federation of Mineralogical and Geological Societies (MWF). In 1950, WGS members were among the eight delegates to the first American Federation of Mineralogical Societies (AFMS) meeting held in Salt Lake City.

In 1984, the Wisconsin Geological Society hosted a large joint rock and mineral show with the MWF at State Fair Park in West Allis that resulted in a 36-page document outlining all the activities including field trips. Joint shows were previously held in 1941, 1944, and 1954.

Blackjack Bonanza

Corn dogs, cotton candy, amusement rides, and a lead/zinc mine tour? Yes!

From 1963 to 1966, Blackjack Bonanza mine tours were a re-creation of a real lead/zinc mine at the Wisconsin State Fair. It was a 15,000-square-foot exhibit that sported a 65-foot headframe tower, an elevator shaft that shook to simulate the ride down into the mine tunnel, and a 30 by-45-foot processing room. A hidden 50-ton A/C unit cooled the mine tunnel making guests think they were far below ground. Mine tours cost fairgoers 75 cents per adult and 24 cents per child.

Like other fair attractions, the Blackjack Bonanza became a part of history as well as the role the WGS played in its existence.

The box revealed that in 1966, members of the WGS took over the 10-day, 12-hour per day, operation of the Blackjack Bonanza mine tours. Club members provided ticket sales, tour guides, and mine workers. They also provided mineral samples for a museum display as well as staff to operate the gift shop.

Naming the Wisconsin State Fossil

State fossils are nothing new. Lots of states have them. But through the box and personal interviews, WGS members found out that club members played a significant role in the process for their state. It took three attempts before the trilobite (Calymene celebra) was officially named Wisconsin’s State Fossil in 1986.

The first attempt was made in 1981 by a UWM geology student, Mark Shurilla, but he neglected to name a specific species of trilobite. The bill failed.

Wisconsin Geological Society members picked up the process in 1983, narrowing the field to the Calymene celebra, found primarily and prolifically in Wisconsin. Again, the bill was defeated.

In 1985, at the direction of the WGS Board of Directors, club president, and chief lobbyist for the bill, Margaret Pearson, made a final and successful attempt. This time, the bill was sponsored by State Assembly member, Jeannette Bell, daughter of WGS members Harold and Luella Jeske. Members of WGS were present at the bill signing on April 2, 1986, in Madison, Wisconsin, as Margaret presented Governor Anthony Earl with a trilobite specimen to mark the occasion.

More Fossils

The original Milwaukee Public Museum opened its doors to the public in 1898. It now houses the Milwaukee Public Library. The board room where the first official WGS meeting was held still exists and is on the National Register of Historic Places.

In 1975, the Museum moved to a new facility across the street but did not have enough room for all of the geology exhibits, including fossils that WGS members originally displayed in 1936.

Fundraising is underway for a new facility with a groundbreaking scheduled for late 2023. It should be open to the public sometime in 2026. It will be a representation of ancient sea stack formations present in Wisconsin’s Mill Bluff State Park. The rounded edges of that building will showcase the glacial weathering that formed Wisconsin and deposited those fossils. Inside, will be displayed those original WGS fossils from 1936.

Plan, Collect, Verify & Store

While the plastic box brought history to life for WGS members, they soon found out its information was incomplete and that members had bits and pieces of history in lots of places; old newsletters here, photo books there. Records ended up in various places as officers and leadership transitioned over time. The club historian, and volunteers, made a plan to gather all of the documents. Here is a to-do list for other club historians that may have the same circumstances.

• Scan and identify all photos and documents and create a digital file

• Contact club officers, new and old, for any information in their possession

• Contact outside sources to verify and provide additional information

• Create documents and a presentation to share with members

• Develop a storage plan to preserve past, current, and future records

After collecting information from members, the first critical step for the WGS was to scan and identify photos and documents and place them in a digital file, backed up on a memory stick.

Finding More Photos

Next, was to contact club officers and members to see if any files or pictures had been handed down to them. Also, an article was published in the club’s monthly newsletter, The Trilobite, asking members who are no longer able to attend meetings to offer any information or photos.

Early on, Wisconsin Geological Society members took field trips, attended study groups, participated in mineral shows, and enjoyed parties and picnics just like they do today. One of the early members must have been an avid photographer as many of these functions were captured with lovely photos. The documentation and preservation of those photos were poor. Names of members and photo locations were often missing or destroyed the photograph by writing or gluing a note directly on the photo.

An Interesting Photo

One of the most interesting photos in the collection was of young boys, wearing knickers, admiring the rocks and minerals in a Wisconsin Geological Society display case. The photo had a typewritten note paper-clipped to it, “Hobby Show November 24-27, 1950?” A scanned copy of this photo was emailed to the Milwaukee Public Library (MPL) archives department for verification. They were able to confirm that a hobby show was held from November 24 to 27 in 1949, however, they could not verify that this photo was taken at that show. According to historical fashion records, knickers for young men had gone out of fashion in the late 1930s.

Photo identification is important. Always record the following information:

• Event

• Place/location

• Date taken

• People, use an easy format of left to right (L to R) and rows top to bottom

• Photographer, if possible

Community Help

Research to fill in the missing information became the next priority. Organizations whose history crossed the club’s path came first. Historical societies and newspaper articles provided another great resource.

Some sources responded immediately, while others required a longer response time. The most successful recoveries of information resulted from telephone calls which produced a real person contact. Additional details continue to be added to the club’s historical records as a result of these contacts.

Long-Term Storage

After a huge effort to gather all of this history, it became important for the WGS to change how it gathers and stores its data in the future. The Milwaukee Public Library has worked with club members to develop a plan for the WGS to donate its current historical records and future yearly updates. Current and future WGS members will retain access to all of their records during normal library business hours.

This story about the Wisconsin Geological Society’s history appeared in Rock & Gem magazine. Click here to subscribe. Story by Sue Eyre.

The post Wisconsin Geological Society History first appeared on Rock & Gem Magazine.

About Mt. Baker Rock & Gem Club

Rock and gem clubs across the country have been challenged by declining membership and limited funding resources. Recently though, Mt. Baker celebrated an astonishing first anniversary. Their bold experiment led to new growth and the club is gaining momentum attracting people to rockhounding and lapidary skills.

Located in the Cascade Mountains 90 minutes north of Seattle, Whatcom County is home to the community of Bellingham. The Mt. Baker Rock and Gem Club is one of the oldest continuously operated local nonprofits in the area. Attracting people of all ages, the organization’s long-standing priorities include providing educational opportunities to the public and funding scholarships to geology students attending Western Washington University.

Making the Decision to Move

Founded in the 1950s, the club’s history includes both abundant and lean times for financing their lapidary room. Since the 1980s, they used free space through the Bellingham Parks Department. This same building was rented by the club for monthly meetings and an annual show. Over the decades, the rates went from free to a modest space rental fee. Eventually, rates increased to be at or above those of renting commercial space in privately owned buildings.

Ultimately the Mt. Baker club faced the reality of being unable to pay the rates.

They moved out of their long-held space in early 2019 and needed to find space for meetings and the annual show.

Finding the Right Space

In November 2020, the club learned that the Bellis Fair Mall in Bellingham had space available. Like other malls, Bellis Fair Mall has suffered declining occupancy. There were two spaces in the mall that would work. These were spaces with a tile floor, sink, access to bathrooms and access to the mall’s indoor foot traffic.

Club president, Candi Gerard, approached the mall to explore renting space. She reached out to the manager with a certain space rental budget in mind.

“I was shocked when he came back and said yes, we want you,” Gerard explained. “They provided us with a contract which we went over with a fine-tooth comb.

We changed a couple of things, took the contract to our full board, and discussed it further. It was a new and scary thing to sign a contract, but we knew that if we didn’t find a solution, our club would die. The mall allowed us to sign a single-year lease.”

The mall does require that visitors and staff wear masks – something that has generally been treated with courtesy and respect.

Opening a Mall Store

One of the big surprises of the mall venture has been the way the space lends itself to selling member products. Club members sell their pieces and volunteer time for managing the space.

Members bring their specialties to the space. For instance, one member specializes in small mineral specimens while another works with large pieces of petrified wood and agate. Another member also sells stone-handled knives.

Displaying members donate their time based on the sales spaces they are using and make a donation to the club for the space they use. This has been beneficial for the club’s overall financial position.

The future of the show circuit remains uncertain, so the storefront is filling a void.

“Before Covid there were rock and gem shows where we could sell pieces,” said club member, Walter Hekala. “But going to shows isn’t all that fun anymore for those of us in our more chronologically advanced years. Selling in our store is a lot better than the show circuit for some of us.”

Club members who aren’t selling are starting to see the benefits of the storefront and are engaging in volunteering more. It does take a lot of people to manage the store during high traffic business hours to prevent theft. Recently, the club added a bulletin board where any member can post a note on what they may be selling.

Mixed-Use Space

The space is large enough for class offerings. Talented members have taught wire wrapping, tumbling and gem identification classes. This year the club will be adding classes on cutting cabochons and polishing rocks. Working with mall security, classes, offerings and the lapidary room are all available after mall hours.

Mt. Baker Rock and Gem Club is expanding beyond a traditional rock and gem store. For instance, one of the space limitations is the ability to offer big bins of stones. The storefront had some metal racks left from the previous renters. There were also some acrylic display cases, all of which have been pressed into use.

From Foot Traffic to Membership

The mall space offers the Mt. Baker club some bonuses. Previously, the mall space was a candy store. People continue to show up looking for candy and generally stay and explore their rock and gem shop.

The shop features rocks and gems and recently has added the sales of jewelry, books and pamphlets about different metals as well as grit for tumblers. In the future, the club would like to sell tumblers too, but currently, they are not available because of supply chain issues. Used tumblers quickly sold out when made available.

The abundant windows of the Mt. Baker Rock and Gem Club storefront invited some fall and winter surprises. More than 400 trick-or-treaters visited the Mt. Baker Rock and Gem Club store on Halloween. The club gave out traditional treats and tumbled rocks to attract rock pups and rockhounds to the store again.

In December, the storefront was adjacent to Santa’s mall presence. This attracted even more families to visit the store – which in some ways acted as a mini rock and gem museum. People asked questions, sometimes bringing in their own stones to be identified. Visitors made donations to the club and inquired about their presence beyond the holiday season. In some cases, they became members. Membership grew from 109 people in 2018 to 180 at the start of 2022.

Keep Moving Forward

The Mt. Baker Rock and Gem Club confidently signed another one-year lease at the end of their first year. They ended their year in a much-improved financial position. They look forward to a longevity position while expanding public interest in rockhounding and lapidary arts.

This story about a mall rock club previously appeared in Rock & Gem magazine. Click here to subscribe. Story by Deb Brandt.

The post A Rock Club Mall Store Success first appeared on Rock & Gem Magazine.

Tumble-polished stones are an honored, time-tested stock-in-trade at the kids’ booths of local gem club shows all around the world. Kids love them! In fact, I still have the small tumble-polished Oregon beach agate I received at the very first gem show I ever attended as a little kid nearly 60 years ago. For many years, I carried the shiny orange treasure in my pocket. Every gem and mineral society ought to have at least one member (preferably more) designated to craft and provide a supply of such translucent little gems. Then, as that supply builds up, get creative in what to do with the inventory!

If you are in a large active society, tumbling rough is fairly easy to come by. For instance, in my own Ventura Gem & Mineral Society (VGMS), our workshop stewards, lapidary artists, and one local dealer are always happy to pass along discarded bits from their slabbing, cabbing, and sphere making efforts. We also have a considerable club rock pile to source, where I pick out chunks of jasper and agate that show good color and/or promising hints of interesting pattern. These get broken into tumbling sized bits on a block of concrete on my backyard patio with a heavy crack hammer.

A word of advice: Wear thick leather gloves and eye protection to guard against sharp shards that can fly like shrapnel!

Ever Watchful for Stones

Finally, during club field trips or walks along the beach, I’m always on the lookout for little stones with tumbling potential and try to come home with at least a small batch to add to my stockpile. With that stockpile now approaching something like a half dozen five-gallon buckets on that backyard patio, I’m never at a loss for tumbling rough. In fact, with so much on hand, I’ll often fill a couple of gallon size Ziploc bags with rough stones to sell as “Bag o’ Rocks” at our various club silent auctions to raise money for the society while encouraging others to join in the tumbling fun.

While I’ve found tumbling rough to be relatively easy to come by, tumbling those rough stones requires a long-term committed investment in money and time.

First, the time aspect. Getting a mirror-like polish out of a dull rough stone does not happen overnight. If you follow the standard procedure with a rotary tumbler, it can take a month to produce finished results. The length of time is because you’ll patiently grind your way through the necessary rough, medium, fine, and polish stages (although with a well-rounded beach agate, you may be able to skip the rough grind). At any one time, I always have at least three rotary tumblers spinning in my garage. While vibratory tumblers can speed the process (and I’ve recently purchased one for experimenting), even then, there’s still a considerable investment of time.

Next is the investment of money. Sure, you can get a small basic tumbler for as little as $50, but as we all know, you get what you pay for. Keep in mind that these machines will be running 24 hours a day seven days a week for a month at a time just to finish a single load. Virtually everyone who has purchased an inexpensive (i.e., “cheap”) machine has complained to me that it has broken down with a burnt-out motor or a snapped belt after just a single load or two. Commercial grade machines can be had for as much as $700 to $800 or more.
I, myself, prefer the Goldilocks price range, that is, neither too low nor too high, but just right!

Trusting the Tried and True Equipment

After a couple tries with other models, I have always gone for the Lortone QT6 model, which currently retails for around $200. There are other equally good manufacturers and models out there, but this one has proven to be a truly reliable workhorse for me for going on twenty-five years now.

Editor’s Note: You can find various Lortone and other brands of tumblers (including those shown below) at the Kingsley North website >>>

Beyond the initial investment in a machine, you then have to feed the machine with a steady diet of grit in three grades—rough, medium, and fine—followed by a dose of expensive polish. And don’t stop to think about what running a tumbling device nonstop does to your electric bill! My wife has also gently suggested we might want to consider moving the noisy tumblers out of the garage and to a place that’s not right next to the bedroom, but I find the white noise of a tumbler tumbling in the dark of night strangely soothing to the soul.

Over the years, I have learned to maximize the results from this investment of time and money. Purists within the tumbling community will often work with batches of a single type of stone (preferably from the same locality, even), but I’m not that pure. Instead, I’ll usually work with mixed batches of jaspers, agates, and other stones so long as they all share the same relative hardness on the Mohs scale. (Most of the stones I work with for tumbling fall within the range of Mohs 6 to Mohs 7.) At the end of the process, I then have a nice variety of stones to use for different purposes.

Once that month-long grinding and polishing process is over, I start dividing finished stones into four piles graded by size and quality, but mostly by size. If you are truly earnest, you might even construct sifting screens with two or three different sizes of wire mesh to speed the grading process. But I’m not that anal. Yet.

Assessing Stone Materials

Pile One holds larger, better quality stones. These include banded agate, agates with inclusions, picture jasper, tiger eye, and any stones with exciting, eye-catching patterns

as seen, for example, in poppy jasper. Other stones placed in Pile One include those with vibrant colors, such as purple amethyst, green aventurine, hot-pink rhodonite and rose quartz, yellow and orange Oregon beach agates, blue lapis or sodalite, etc.

All of the Pile One specimens get “First Class” treatment. I gussy them up by putting them into 2X2- or 2X3-inch baggies along with a label printed on cardstock to identify what they are and, if known, their locality of origin. I’m a big believer that we should do everything possible to instill in kids the importance of provenance in the gem and mineral collecting hobby.

We also use these nicer, packaged stones as spinning wheel prizes at our annual VGMS gem show, where kids pay just a buck a spin for a rocky reward. These packages are a real bargain in that I’ve seen similar stones sold in rock shops and museum gift shops for anywhere from three to ten dollars. We have also used these stones in other ways. For instance, as gifts for teachers or as freebies for kids who complete a “Scavenger Hunt” questionnaire evaluating different aspects of our gem show.

If you have talented wire wrappers in your society, you might enlist them to use some of these primo stones for crafting wire-wrapped pendant necklaces to sell in your kids’ booth. Or perhaps they might use a little supply to host lessons for kids on wire wrapping and on making quick-and-easy pendants with glue-on bell caps. This activity could take place right in the show kids’ booth, or you might make it an event to do with the kids in your society on a workshop day if you run an active Pebble Pups and Juniors program. Tumbling Tip: A good time of year to hold such a workshop is around Father’s Day, Mother’s Day, and ahead of the holiday season.

Making the Most of Everything

Pile Two holds larger stones that are still shiny and pretty but more on the duller side of the color spectrum. For instance, instead of a vivid red, you may have rust-red jaspers. Instead of a hot-pink rhodonite, you may have a pale pink chalcedony agate. Pile Two also holds clear or milky-white agates or brown and yellow jaspers.

Usually, the stones in this pile have little or no appealing pattern. Such stones get “Economy Class” treatment. While some of the better ones might end up in 2X2- or 2X3-inch baggies with labels to identify what they are and where they came from, most are destined for use as grab bag filler to augment the higher quality stones and fossils that we typically include in our grab bags.

Pile Three consists of high-quality stones that are pretty and colorful and may have beautiful bands or other nice patterns but are too small to serve as individual prizes or even as grab bag filler. With such smaller stones, there is strength in numbers! These get “Business Class” treatment, so long as they team up.

I take anywhere from three to six individual specimens from this pile and glue them onto small cards that I’ve developed with grids containing identifying info to craft “Gemstone Collections.” These are finished off by inserting the cards into 3X4-inch baggies. These make nice spinning wheel prizes. They can also serve as promotional items for your local society if you print necessary information about the society and prominently display its web address on the back of the card.

Treasure Chest Discoveries

As another use for such smaller but colorful stones, we stock a “Treasure Chest” that we put out front-and-center on the welcome booth near the front door at our show to provide each newly arriving child with a free stone right off the bat. I also line kids up and let them pick through a treasure chest activity when home-schoolers, Scouts, or other groups of kids take a field trip to our club’s little two-room museum. I will typically do the same thing when making visits to school classrooms to give invited presentations on rocks and minerals. Just as a warning: some kids will want to paw over every pebble in the chest and will still be unable to make up their minds about which one to pick, even as classmates clamor behind them to hurry up!

In addition to using tumbled stone as prizes or gifts, the flatter, more translucent rocks of this size may be incorporated into a kids’ booth activity, namely, making suncatchers. As a base, you might use plexiglass disks or the plastic tops of containers such as Pringles chip canisters with a small hole drilled near the edge. Kids glue on stones then run fishing line through the hole for a colorfully sparkling and ready-made object of art to hang against a windowpane.

Finally, Pile Four consists of stones that most folks would not even consider for Economy Class. All-too-often, these are simply tossed out. To use my Grandma’s phrase, these are the tiny “chibblin’s and nibblin’s” that seem far too small to serve any useful purpose. But, to use Yoda’s phrase, “useful are they, yes!”

I insert the tiniest chips into small glass vials that are less than two inches long (the sort of vials that gold panners like to use), thus crafting “Gemstone Jars.” I package these in 2X3-inch baggies along with a little card. Like the Gemstone Collections, the jars have proven to be popular as spinning wheel prizes. I have put larger chibblin’s and nibblin’s into either 2X2-inch baggies or somewhat larger jars like the single-portion jelly jars from hotels and restaurants. Once again, these get used as spinning wheel prizes.

Sand-Sifting Materials Too

We also use such small polished pieces for a sand-sifting activity at the kid’s booth, where kids use a screen or colander to pick a half dozen gems, minerals, fossils, or beads from a plastic tub filled with sand. One fellow VGMS member has suggested such chips might be drilled and used for constructing gemstone wire trees as another activity. But anyone who faints at the sight of blood and who has seen me in action with a tiny stone and a hand-held Dremel or Foredom drill might want to avert their gaze!

Do you have more ways in which you’ve employed tumbled polished stones, either at your annual club show or during workshops with your society’s Pebble Pups? If so, I’d love to hear about your experiences and good suggestions!

As you can see, I have found many ways you can use your tumble-polished stones at your next club gem show, even the tiniest stones you may have previously tossed into the bin as a useless by-product. You put a lot of time, effort, and expense into tumble polishing those stones. Why not maximize the results?

Visit Kingsley North for all of your tumbling and lapidary equipment and supply needs www.kingsleynorth.com.

The post Tumbling Talk: Maximizing Results for Kids’ Projects and Prizes first appeared on Rock & Gem Magazine.

Twelve-year-old Nadine Marshall is a young lady with many facets.

Not only is she a lapidary artist extraordinaire, but she also enjoys playing basketball, cooking, and reading. Her interest in the gemstone hobby started with her grandma. Together, they gathered rocks from an Oregon creek when Nadine was just four years old. Later, her dad took her gold panning, and they found garnets and “flour gold.” These experiences hooked her on the hobby.

Rock Club Opens Doors

Nadine wanted to learn to facet when she joined a rock club at age nine, but the club prohibited children under age 14 from using machinery. So she stuck

to rock hunting while keeping an eye out for opportunities to learn. When the family moved to Washington, they joined Lakeside Gem & Mineral Club (LGMC). There, Nadine found a mentor in Mike Zinski. Mike was willing to teach anyone, regardless of age.

“I wish us grown-ups would stop thinking our young ones are not capable of doing what we do,” says Zinski. “Juniors are the future of our hobby and arts. Saying NO without giving them a try is shameful to me. If they show ability, give them a GO!”

Since December 2018, when Nadine finished her first faceted stone under Mike’s guidance, she’s enjoyed growing and learning more about faceting with Mentor Mike. As of this writing, she’s completed more than 25 faceted gems. With her first stone, she was scared, but Mike showed trust in her skills, thus building her confidence with inspiration and encouragement

Learning Lapidary Arts

Nadine thoroughly enjoys her membership in LGMC. She’s been able to learn about the lapidary arts world and view works completed by other artists. She socializes with members and learns from their experiences. She especially loves how members invest in each other and take time to support one another. For instance, Mentor Mike offers his services free to fellow members. Says Nadine of LGMC, “I am so grateful.”

For other juniors, Nadine urges, “Do everything you can to figure out how to

learn. Set goals for yourself. For example, maybe it’s a new style of cut. When working with natural stones, you’re going to experience frustrating moments and it’s okay to walk away from that stone, start another, then come back to it later when you can look at it with fresh eyes. Find a mentor, listen and glean what you can; find artists online and observe what they’re doing. There’s so much information online than was available when seasoned members were starting.”

For parents who have a child interested in the hobby, Nadine recommends joining a rock club, then finding a mentor to help get started while setting goals, like how many types of stones or designs to complete in the first year. And, if still excited, make a plan for how to save to buy supplies—from rough stones to cut, to books with instructions and designs, to your very own faceting machine. Nadine has been saving babysitting money toward the purchase of a machine. Her dream is to become a master faceter and gemologist.

Inspiration Through Resources

She notes, “I love taking something already pretty and making it shine to its best potential.”

Rock clubs and their members are great resources to help in all this—along with parental support. With the right support and determination, anything is achievable. Nadine has all the fine facets to prove it!

If you know of a junior rockhound you’d like to nominate for a spotlight profile, please contact me at jbraceth@roadrunner.com.

The post The Many Facets of Nadine Marshall first appeared on Rock & Gem Magazine.

• Canada Digs Diamonds: 20 Years, 200 Million Carats — and Counting. By Steve Voynick

• Aragonite: Adding Beauty to Ancients and Shells. By Bob Jones

• Mineral Associations: Taking Collecting to Another Level. By Jordan  D. March’e II

• Club Corner: News Briefs from Rock and Mineral Clubs

• Birthstone Fascination: Uncommon Connections of Common Stones. By Bob Jones

• Exploring Montana’s Mining Past: Out and About in the Pioneer Mountains Region. By Jim Landon

• Evolution of a Lapidary Artist: D. Robert Smith. By Antoinette Rahn

• Complex Orb Manifestations: Further Exploration of Orb Phenomena in Jaspers (Part II). By Joe Dehmer

In addition, you’ll find the following regular R&G columns: Bench Tips with Bob Rush, Rock Science with Steve Voynick, What to Cut with Russ Kaniuth, On the Rocks with Bob Jones, Faceting Focus with Jim Perkins, Dynamic Dig Discovery, Question of the Week, Picks & Pans, as well as an extensive Show Dates section, and the always popular Parting Shot.

The post Issue Highlights: July 2019 first appeared on Rock & Gem Magazine.

When Raul Barraza ramped up efforts to rebuild the Ventura Gem & Mineral Society (VGMS) kids program in California several years ago, one girl stood out as a pied piper in bringing other kids due to her infectious enthusiasm.

Eight-year-old Lucia Hetrick has been a VGMS member since she was five. In that time, their Pebble Pups Program has grown to 40+ members. At least 17 are from Lucia’s Montessori School of Ojai as a result of her fondness for all things rock related!

Early Passion for Collecting

Lucia has picked up natural items from the time she began to walk and shares her finds. She collects everywhere she can and finds value in everything she collects: rocks, minerals, petrified wood, pinecones, seashells, antlers, fossils, etc. Her favorite items are fossils and petrified wood. Lucia enjoys being in nature exploring. Her favorite places are the beach with her mom, hiking with her dad or going to the family ranch in Colorado. She loves to share her collections with her friends.

As a member of the AFMS Future Rockhounds of America program, Lucia has earned 12 of the 20 badges offered and has earned numerous badges from the National Park Service Junior Ranger program. She has participated in the VGMS gem show with exhibits for two years, has exhibited in Federation shows, and has won first place trophies for two years in the Ventura County Fair. She recently began the certification process with VGMS to enable her to cut and polish rocks in the club workshop.

Awarded Achievement

As a result of her accomplishments, Lucia has been awarded an

AFMS/FRA Leadership badge and was recognized as VGMS 2017 Junior Rockhound of the Year. She dreams of becoming a paleontologist, scientist, or artist. She clearly shows the passion to accomplish any of these or more!

For more information about the Ventura Gem & Mineral Society (VGMS) visit www.vgms.org and for more information about the AFMS Future Rockhounds of America visit www.amfed.org/fra/fut_rock.htm.

The post Spotlight on Juniors: Lucia Hetrick Helps Grow a Club first appeared on Rock & Gem Magazine.

Anytime a rockhounding club has the privilege of being able to go underground as part of an extended field trip, the participants are in for a definite treat. When I first heard of such a trip being planned, thanks to Gary Rowe of the Colorado Mineral Society (CMS), I knew I had to clear my calendar and save up provisions! Our trip would be centered on the town of Socorro, New Mexi­co. It would extend over two full days, and would easily become one of my most favorite treks ever, in terms of both the variety of minerals to collect and the fun and interesting memories.

My seven-and-a-half-hour solo trek from Denver to Socorro, heading north on Interstate 25, almost ended before it began! The Denver area was caught in a mid-May blizzard, which made the first two hours of driving very perilous and nearly made me turn back. Like a tortoise, I inched my way along until the snow turned to light rain around Colorado Springs. Between Colorado Springs and Pueblo, it was sunny as could be. As I went through Pueblo, it was precipitating dime-size hail. From Pueblo on out, there was not a cloud in the sky. Talk about Mother Nature’s ever-changing moods!

The Kelly Mine

The next morning, our first full day of the venture started with meeting five other CMS members in a restaurant parking lot. We carpooled to Tony’s Rock Shop, in the village of Magdalena, a 30-minute drive west along U.S. Highway 60 from Socorro. Bennie, the shop owner, greeted us. We paid our $10-per-person entrance fee, received maps of the mine area, and had a chance to glance over some impressive smithsonites and other mineral specimens for sale. The rules for collecting at the Kelly mine were simple: Don’t venture down any old mine shafts and be off the premises by sundown.

From Tony’s, it was only a three-mile drive southeast to the mine entrance gate. St. John the Baptist Catholic Church is very close by. Collectors could park at the church or try to venture into the mining grounds proper, which required a high-clearance vehicle. I rode in with a new friend, Chris, since a Jeep Rubicon would best a Ford Focus anytime!

The Kelly mine is in the Magdalena mining district, which started extracting ore in 1878 and continued to do so until the last residents moved out in 1947. The actual mine site is technically situated in Kelly, a ghost town named after claimholder Patrick H. Kelly. In 1884, it was a boomtown, with general stores, banks, saloons, churches, and mine company houses. The mine’s heyday was in the 1910s, when it was the state’s leading producer of lead and zinc.

Formations Speak Volumes of Geological History

Geologically speaking, this mining district is in the Magdalena Mountain Range, classified as fault-block mountains. This variety of mountains forms from crustal extension, in which the ground splits apart at a fault and large blocks of crust either drop down or are thrust up. The sunken areas are known as basins, and the pushed-up blocks are characterized by sheer rock faces on one side and gentle slopes on the other. The region of crustal spreading occurring in New Mexico is known as the Rio Grande Rift. The faults would later serve as conduits for mineral-bearing fluids.

Before the onset of crustal rifting, Mississippian-age fossiliferous limestone was deposited on top of a Precambrian-age igneous and sedimentary rock sequence, in the shallow, warm oceans that covered the area. These rocks became known as the Kelly limestone, and would serve as the main ore-bearing unit. Deposited on top of the Kelly limestone are sandstones and other limestones. Following the Permian Period (around 250 mya), multiple granitic magmas intruded the area and solidified.

Hydrothermal fluids initially altered and replaced the initial Kelly limestone into harder silicified limestone. After this, the fluids deposited the primary ore minerals (galena, chalcopyrite, pyrite, sphalerite) into the Kelly limestone, mainly, but some mineralization is hosted in the underlying Precambrian rocks, as well. A short time after the main mineralizing event, sphalerite and galena were oxidized to form the respective secondary carbonates of smithsonite and cerussite. Some malachite and azurite, are also formed from the oxidation of chalcopyrite.

Common and Uncommon Specimens

The most noteworthy smithsonite specimens found here have a distinctive blue-green hue, with other wonderful shades of apple green and steely gray-blue. Additionally, their distinctive botryoidal crystal form easily sets them apart from other minerals. The galena and pyrites I have found here are mostly anhedral in overall crystal form. Some freshly broken ore boulders can reveal subhedral cubic cleavage planes, but I have not found any protruding 3-D cubes here. The malachite and azurite I have found here were mostly just small encrustations. However, one club member showed off quite the azurite find from a few years back—a set of elongate prismatic navy blue crystals—so there is always a chance!

The Kelly mine area is divided up into multiple distinct tailings piles. While there is always a chance of finding smithsonite at any pile, certain piles will be better than others as sources of certain combinations of specimens. The mine area maps and permits will highlight the piles and tell which minerals are most likely to be found in each.

I started my day at the pile closest to where we parked, surrounded by loads of collapsed wood, while much of the group started at a neighboring pit. Given the number of visitors the Kelly mine receives, finding even a small, good smithsonite is far from a guarantee. Luckily for me, it only took about 45 minutes to find my first one—a small cluster of sea-green crystals in a silicified vug—about 10 yards from where I started.

After hammering on some boulders to see if I would get lucky with hidden massive sulfide ore, I made my way toward the neighboring pit to show off my first find. Nobody else had found any smithsonites yet, but Chris had recovered two matching halves of a boulder saturated with galena.

Tales From the Dig Site

I plucked up two more of the zinc carbonates, this time with steely blue-gray hues, within just a few minutes of each other. Upon hearing my expressions of glee, a club member exclaimed to me, “You rat!” She had previously walked over the same spot.

Strolling around the rest of the grounds, one can easily place oneself in the historical days of active mining, as the main hoist shaft, smelter, housing, rusted hardware, and other dilapidated infrastructure are still on full display. Although properly surrounded by fencing, the vertical shaft is still open, and you can still have a partial peek down. In seeing this, I had a brief nerd moment in which I dropped a pebble, or two, down and counting the seconds until I heard its impact (and figuring out the distance traveled due to gravitational acceleration).

Make Shop Stops Part of Road Trip

After finding six decent smithsonites, several ore specimens, and a bonus crinoid stem fossil, I decided to call it a wrap in mid-afternoon, so I would have some time to get back to Socorro and visit New Mexico Tech’s mineral museum. The small group that I had started my day with was still in the initial pit. Kyle had found a trio of very nice, but quite small, apple-green smithsonites (the largest was around an inch long) by digging into the slope and screening the dirt. A few other clubmates had made their way down to our location from the surrounding hills, having had some luck around some smaller, collapsed mine portals.

On my way out of Magdalena, I stopped into another rock shop called Otero’s, at 105 E.

First Street. The shop owner, Ben (actually a relative of Bennie’s), was quite inviting and regaled me with stories of collecting at the Kelly mine before it became heavily picked over. Along with an impressive collection of smithsonites, Ben showed off probably the most impressive set of zinc carbonate jewelry one can lay one’s eyes upon. Along with an array of individual types of jewelry, Ben has crafted the only trio of complete smithsonite cabochon and sterling silver jewelry sets (necklace, bracelet, ring and earrings). Each set is worth around $2,000.

Due to their rarity, the lowest-end jewelry pieces start in the hundreds of dollars and can easily reach four figures. If one is interested in making a custom piece of smithsonite jewelry, Otero’s is the place to go! The shop’s phone number is (575) 740-4996.

The Blanchard Mine

The next day’s stop was considered the “main event” for this club trip, and for very good reason. We met up with a considerably larger group at the Blanchard Rock Shop, in the “town” of Bingham. A number of repeat visitors said that this particular stop is their favorite all year ’round.

From my Socorro motel, I drove south on I-25 for a few minutes to Exit 139, then took U.S. Highway 380 east for 30 miles. Signs for the rock shop absolutely cannot be missed, and it is one of the only buildings out in the open desert. I was one of the first to arrive, so I had some time to chat with the shop owner, Allison, peruse the massive inventory of bulk rock displayed outside, and make friends with the shop mascot, “Momma Kitty”, a very social orange tabby cat, as well as two German Shepard guard dogs.

Ray DeMark, the Blanchard mine claim owner, gave out area maps, and we caravanned due south down a nearby dirt road. After driving for around 3.5 miles, watching out for loose cattle, we stopped to get a wonderful panoramic view of the Blanchard mine on the distant hillside. Ray talked about the general geology of the mining district, and pointed out other nearby claim sites.

The Blanchard mine is just one of a few dozen discovered mines that comprise the larger Hansonburg mining district. In turn, the Hansonburg is the largest district that is located wholly within the Rio Grande Rift. The key minerals that are found at these mines are fluorite, galena, barite, brochantite, anglesite and linarite. Other minerals include cerussite, gypsum, calcite, caledonite, cuprite, hemimorphite, hydrozincite, smithsonite and wulfenite. It is literally impossible for anyone to walk away from the Blanchard empty-handed!

Fault-Block History

The geologic story of the Hansonburg district starts with the Sierra Oscura Mountains, and is very similar in scope to that of the Magdalena district. The Sierra Oscuras are also fault-block mountains, initiated by the same Miocene crustal-thinning episode. The main rock units here are also mostly the same: Proterozoic granites and gneisses comprising the base (or basement), with Pennsylvanian-age sandstones, limestones and shales. The Kelly Formation (ore host) counterpart here is called the Madera Limestone, which also underwent silicification into a much harder body. Hydrothermal fluid activity dissolved portions of the limestone to create cavities.

The fluids are thought to have been composed, in part, of hydrofluoric acid (HF), as evidenced by the presence of fluorite (CaF2). The dissolution cavities, along with fault creation from the tectonic stretching, served once again as the avenues for hydrothermal mineralization. The Blanchard fluorites are shades of blue, green and purple, or clear. Along with the traditional cubic crystals, specimens display a rounded, stepped habit, indicative of rapid crystal growth along the edges.

Fluorite is a personal favorite, and I zeroed in on finding the dark-blue hue (also known as “Bingham blue”), which is caused by light interacting with an electron that is housed in a vacant fluorine site in the cubic crystal structure. If sufficient energy (i.e., ultraviolet light from the sun) is present, dislodged fluorine atoms can return to their original site in the crystal lattice. This removes the free electron, and its associated color wavelength. Therefore, the Bingham blue color will fade over time with prolonged sunlight exposure.

Appeal of Linarite

Collectively, the most sought after mineral on this venture was the royal-blue linarite. It is a semi-rare mineral that is prized for its intense hue and its patches of small, acicular crystals. Linarite is a secondary copper mineral with a very similar appearance to azurite that also contains lead (PbCuSO4(OH)2). The two blues can be distinguished in that azurite reacts to weak hydrochloric acid, whereas linarite will not. Linarite’s more common emerald-green counterpart is the secondary mineral brochantite (Cu4SO4(OH)6). As with the “blues brothers”, brochantite can easily be confused with its more common cousin, malachite. Again, malachite reacts with acid, whereas brochantite will not. In most specimens that contain both linarite and brochantite, the former is present in lesser amounts due to its slightly more complex chemical formula.

After our geology talk, the caravan proceeded another two miles or so to a parking area marked with cement slabs. There, we assembled into carpools, since this was the end of the “smooth” portion of the trek up. From this spot, most of the old mine ground’s infrastructure was visible, and Ray gave another short talk on the production history and how ore was processed and transported. The first significant mining activity here was for lead in 1916, with operations being run by Western Mineral Products.

Throughout the next 50 years, lease ownership changed hands quite a few times, and production was extremely limited, due to the high difficulty in separating the galena from the barite and fluorite. The current owners, of whom Ray is one, purchased the claim in April 1987, and it has been worked exclusively as a specimen mine ever since.

We proceeded a short but harrowing distance upward toward a bench in the middle of the mountain slope. The path up is narrow and rocky, with switchbacks. We did our best to cram all our vehicles into the limited parking area in an orderly fashion. This middle bench is one of two main levels for rockhounding, and consists of a short, linear path along the mountain slope. While walking around to get acclimated, the group noted that pieces of clear and light-purple fluorite, brochantite, and partially oxidized galena were plentiful.

Be Aware of Surroundings

We were instructed which were the best, safest places along the bench wall for hammering out specimens. This is the smallest area in which to exclusively surface collect, and it is highlighted by a relic wooden ore bin.

After being told to watch for rattlesnakes, we returned to our vehicles and continued

upward another short distance toward the highest (primary) level of the mine grounds. The parking area up there is significantly larger, and the views of the horizon from the cliff face are worthy of some snapshots.

We wasted no time in sorting our equipment and made a beeline for the mine opening in the wall rock. After equipping our headlamps, Ray demonstrated the preferred method of fitting through the 3-foot by 3-foot underground mine portal. It involves leading with one leg, placing the foot on a ladder rung, followed by moving butt first, and ending by poking your head in. After everyone made it underground, Ray gave us a short walkthrough of the mine layout and showed us where to find certain specimens.

Again, it was impossible to walk out empty-handed! The easiest specimens to collect here are galena interspersed in snow-white quartz and barite, as they are lying everywhere for the picking, as well as on the walls and ceiling. I knew I was in a rockhound’s heaven! Along with a good part of the group, I started in one of two spots that, according to Ray, had the best chances of holding linarite. As I was getting into my first subhorizontal position, my senses were almost immediately overloaded by the selection of specimens to start chiseling out! I saw brochantite, euhedral quartz crystals, light-green, “hopper-faced” fluorite, galena, barite, anglesite, and traces of linarite all in the same spot.

Challenging Chiseling

However, the Blanchard mine does not give up its treasures quite so easily! As mentioned before, the host rock is very hard silicified limestone that will put even the most eager rockhound’s endurance to the test. I started out by chiseling away at a few pre-existing fractures to get some small specimens, while Kyle and a couple others started to advance a small tunnel that had already been started by Ray. It did not take long for Kyle to produce foot-long plates covered with royal-blue blotches.

We had a time limit of around three hours underground before Ray summoned all of us to close shop for the day. When we reconvened at the parking lot, Ray was kind enough to pull out several flats of exceptional specimens from his van and offer them for sale. Although I thought I fared well on the linarite front, I nonetheless decided to buy a $15 linarite cluster.

For the remainder of the day, I joined up with Nancy and Bob Hatfield to try our luck in mining blue fluorite from a surface vein that they had found the year before. We headed up to the middle of a slope about 50 yards south of the underground portals. The three of us alternated between working the slope, and exploring the surroundings for surface boulders.

This area has plentiful, large specimens of calcite, barite and fluorite, just ripe for the picking. It seemed that the loose surface boulders contain mainly colorless, light-purple, and light-blue fluorite, whereas the darker “electric-blue” fluorite is in the hillside pockets (as well as underground). When it was my turn to work the slope-side vein, I did my best to keep track of my time on it to be fair to the others. In all, I managed to pull out a few loose blue cubes.

Not even two minutes had passed since I had passed my turn over to Bob, when he pulled out two small, but miraculous, deep-blue clusters. Since I had just missed them, Bob offered both to me. I compromised, and each of us took one cluster. We kept on surface digging until we called it a successful day at around 6:30 pm. Most of us would be heading back to the Denver area the next morning. A few others, including Kyle, camped out at the mining grounds for an extra day’s worth of underground mining, while another few would try their luck again with finding smithsonite.

Desert Rose Claims

If you’re interested in rockhounding the Hansonburg district, your best chance will probably be to visit the Desert Rose Claims, where both individuals and groups can collect. The claims are in the same region as the Blanchard mine and the same minerals (including linarite) can be found. The only major difference is that the Desert Rose is restricted to surface collecting. For a fee of $20 per person, visitors are allowed to carry out a maximum of 20 pounds of material (depending on quality).

To arrange a visit to the Desert Rose, call Allison or her husband, Donnie, at the Blanchard Rock Shop, at (575) 423-3235, or e-mail them from their website www.blanchardrockshop.com. Be sure to check out Allison’s selection of trinitite, glass fused together by the atomic bomb tests conducted at the Trinity Site, in the same region.

Access to underground collecting at the Blanchard mine is restricted to several regional clubs. However, the day before the Socorro Mineral Symposium, held every November, Ray holds an open house at the Blanchard, which anyone can attend. The only requirement for entry is that you are registered for the symposium. Information on the symposium can be found at https://geoinfo.nmt.edu/museum/minsymp/. The symposium is a wonderful chance for any professional or amateur rockhound/geologist to enhance and share their knowledge!

The post Socorro’s Mineral Cornucopia first appeared on Rock & Gem Magazine.

ROCKHOUND: Carl Moran

SPECIMEN: Bisbee turquoise

MEASUREMENT: About 8 inches

LOCATION DISCOVERED: I found it on Nov 11, 2017, within 50 miles northwest of Bisbee, Arizona.

It was in an old tailing pile next to an abandoned shallow mine. This find includes Chrysocolla turquoise gem silica, azurite, among others. It’s showing green turquoise in places, and colors I’ve never seen. As a prospector, I learned to follow the movement of the tectonic plates. If something occurred once it occurs again with the movement of the plates.

HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN A ROCKHOUND AND HOW DID YOU GET STARTED?

I’ve been a passionate rockhound for over 25 years. I got started one day when my father-in-law said to me “We’re not doing nothing on the weekends, do you want to go find gold?” After that, we joined rock clubs then one day on an outing I met my friend and mentor, miner Blue Sheppard of Gems of Pala. I could see the passion in his eyes and the rest is history.

IF YOU WERE GOING TO DESCRIBE THE APPEAL OF SEARCHING FOR, COLLECTING, AND ADMIRING ROCKS, GEMS, AND MINERALS, WHAT WOULD YOU SAY?

For me, it was like an instant love. It’s the thrill of the find.

Spending time among Mother Earth and her gifts of splendor. The adventure and a love for the deserts, wilderness, and sunrises and sunsets in all their beauty, fill my heart. I just want to get my story out, to encourage others never to give up on their dreams.

ARE YOU INTERESTED IN SHARING A DYNAMIC DIG DISCOVERY?

We welcome photos and stories about the rocks, gems, minerals, and fossils you come upon during digging excursions, mine explorations, and whatever other means you use to examine the rockhounding bounty the earth provides.
To participate, you’ll need to submit the following information:
• Your name (initials are fine).
• The identity of the specimen you’ve discovered and include a
photo if possible.
• Measurement of the specimen.
• Location (county or region and state) where you made the
discovery.
• Length of time you’ve been a rockhound and how you got
started.
• How would you describe the appeal of searching for, collecting,
and admiring rocks, gems, and minerals?

The post Dynamic Dig Discovery: Brilliant Bisbee Turquoise first appeared on Rock & Gem Magazine.