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Strata Gem Tooele Gem & Mineral October/November 2004
The Presidents Message October
How can I say Thank You Enough. We had a wonderful show and those of you who came down to help worked themselves so hard they were totally exhausted. I can't express how grateful I am for the support of the wonderful people in our club. THANK YOU AGAIN!!!!! We have to think about our elections and our Christmas Party at our next meeting.
The winner of our Friday night Afghan was Bob Titus, our Saturday winner was Frenchy, and our Barbecue was won by Richard Dix. See you at our next meeting.
Good Luck and Good Health to Everyone Your President Ruth S. Smith
The Presidents Message November
Our October meeting was great, we had a good time visiting and talking about our great show.
What a group we have, you all work so hard for our hobby and show. The Treasure read the report and we have done really well.
Selma Jockisch brought our treats and it was great. Thanks again Selma.
I have arranged for our Christmas Party to be held on December 18th. Hope to see you all there. The club pays for the members and guests will be paying $11.00 each.
Our club is 40 years old this year and we have been having our show at the Complex for the last 20 years. We started at the Complex in 1984.
I want to wish everyone a Happy Halloween, hope to see you at our next meeting.
Thanks to Dennis for a great paper. He does such a good job for us. A big Thank You to Dennis Chapman.
Good Luck Always Ruth S Smith
Tooele Gem & Mineral Tooele Senior Citizens Center 13 September 2004 The meeting was called to order by President Ruth Smith every one was welcomed. The minutes of the last meeting were read and approved the treasurers report was read and approved. Jay has contacted all the schools to see if they want someone to give them a presentation on geology this year all but one school would like a presentation, Jay ask for volunteers to make the presentations almost all the schools were assigned, we still need some more coverage Jay will call on some of our members who are not here tonight.
Janet reported that our show preparations are going well, she has made a work schedule for the show, if you cannot fill your assigned time please call her, we do have some young people coming to help with the show. Dennis Chapman needs a laser printer so he can print the club paper, some of the club members have printers they will give him but we don’t know if they will work Ruth ask Don to call him and find out exactly what he needs. Henry Chavez has made arrangements to have the prisoners help set up the show and take it down. We will have an add in the transcript bulletin half a page, this will cost about three hundred and fifty dollars. Henry said we will be short about twenty tables, he will make arrangements to borrow some. Donna Chavez won the door prize.
Larry Wilson Secretary
Tooele Gem & Mineral Tooele Senior Citizens Center October 11, 2004
The meeting was called to order by President Ruth Smith and every one was welcomed. The minutes of the last meeting were read and approved the treasurers report was read and approved. We talked about our show, all the dealers did well as did the club. Ruth thanked all the members that helped to make our show a success. Larry Higley will be our show chairman next year, and Janet Nix will be in charge of the advertising. We decided we would not run the show until 10 PM again, we will close at 8 PM. We were just to tired to go longer and the dealers agreed. We had some problems with trash we didn’t get it all cleaned up after the show, also the restrooms were not as clean as they should be. Larry Higley went down and cleaned up so we could get our deposit back, we will correct this problem next year.
Ruth read the names of people that were willing to be officers of the club and ask for nominations from the floor; their were no nominations from the floor, Sherri Miller made a motion that we vote the officers in by acclamation, the club voted all officers in as named: Bob Titus as President, Ruth Smith as Vice President, Mary Lynn Titus as Treasurer, Larry Wilson Secretary. Gren Duane will bring the treats next month. The Christmas party was discussed we will try to have it at the Elks Lodge, Ruth & Don Smith and Ardith & Larry Higley, will work on making the arrangements for the party. The door prize was won by Mary Helen West. The meeting was adjourned.
Minutes submitted by Larry Wilson Secretary
Congratulation To Dorothy & VerNon Peterson For celebrating their 65th marriage Anniversary
Christmas Party
I don’t have all the details, but it look like it will be December 18th. Downstairs (?) at the Elk Lodge in Tooele (61 N Main) behind the Post Office if memory serves me correctly.
Free for the Members, $11 for guests
Come to the next meeting for more details or I should have in the next newsletter or reminder letter.
Letter from the editor My Apologies for a late newsletter. The show slowed things down & I have not been feeling well.
Dennis Chapman
Loud & Clear October 1, 2004
This must be my last "Loud & Clear" column. I must resign as Chair of the Conservation and Legislation Committee. That my law practice (Patents and Trademarks) continues to grow is good news. The bad news is that the passing years have reduced the amount of energy I am able to bring to my work. If and when I retire, I would love to return to the fray.
Since I started writing "Loud & Clear" more than 10 years ago, we have lost hundreds of collecting sites due to incorporation into newly designated wilderness areas and national monuments, the latter being established in the final hours of the last administration by Presidential Decree invoking the somewhat dubious authority of the Antiquities Act. Further, those collecting sites which remain theoretically "open" became progressively more difficult to access by reason of an aggressive policy of road closure adopted by the last administration. The trend has definitely been toward exclusion of the public in general, and rockhounds in particular, from public lands. However, I now see several promising developments. Consider the following macro trends.
Macro Trend #1 - The Judiciary - Use and Abuse of the Judiciary to Change Land Use Policy While most Americans may believe that major policy changes should be effected through the legislative process, environmental groups have shown great adeptness in furthering their objectives through use of the judiciary. However, we now see some encouraging signs that our Judicial Branch of government is moving toward limiting the ability of such groups to further their agendas through use of the judiciary.
Much of the impetus toward management of public lands in a manner restricting human use and access derives from litigation brought against the federal land use agencies by activist environmental groups with seemingly limitless budgets. The Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Environmental and Natural Resources Division stated this past Summer that there were 7100 active environmental lawsuits then being litigated at that time in the United States. However, help is on the way.
This past Summer the United States Supreme Court unanimously (9-0) dealt a severe setback to use of the judiciary by environmental groups in pursuit of their agenda. In Norton, Secretary of the Interior et al v. Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance et al, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected all three claims of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance against the U.S. Department of Interior acting through the Bureau of Land Management.
Plaintiff’s first claim charged the Department of Interior with violation of the Wilderness Act. The Utah lands in question in this case have been designated as wilderness study areas pursuant to the statutory mandate that lands having "wilderness characteristics" be identified and inventoried. However, once so identified a wilderness study area (WSA) remains in limbo until if and when Congress enacts legislation establishing wilderness status. The statute commands that such lands, while in this limbo, shall be managed "in a manner so as not to impair the suitability of such areas for preservation as wilderness," the so-called "anti-impairment requirement". Unfortunately, such a WDA can remain as such indefinitely even if the Secretary of the Interior determines that the land is not in fact suitable for wilderness designation.
The Plaintiffs alleged that the anti-impairment requirement of the Wilderness Act mandated total exclusion of off-road vehicle use as impairing "the suitability of such areas for preservation as wilderness." The Plaintiff’s claim was denied, the court holding that the non-impairment requirement of the Wilderness Act is an objective but that the Act leaves the BLM "a great deal of discretion in deciding how to achieve" (that objective). The court noted that the provision "only agency action that can be compelled under the APA is action legally required" is designed "to protect agencies from undue judicial interference with their lawful discretion and to avoid judicial entanglement in abstract policy." In view of the discretion allowed the BLM in such matters, the Court found that total exclusion of ORV use cannot be judicially mandated.
The second claim asserted by the Plaintiffs was to the effect that the BLM had not complied with its own land use plan. The Court denied this claim also finding that "a land use plan is generally a statement of priorities; it guides and constrains actions, but does not (at least in the usual case) prescribe them." "A statement by the BLM about what it plans to do, at some point [in the future]... cannot be plucked out of context and made the basis for a suit under Section 706(1) [of the Administrative Procedure Act, "APA"]."
Plaintiff’s third claim was to the effect that the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) required the BLM to prepare a supplemental environmental impact statement given evidence of increased ORV use. However, the court found that such a supplemental statement is required only in circumstances where major federal agency action is ongoing. The Court held that there was no requirement for a supplemental environmental impact statement in that adoption of the plan is an action completed when the land use plan is approved.
Summarizing, the Court’s decision in Norton, Secretary of the Interior et al v. Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance et al, severely curtails the ability of private entities to compel land use decisions in furtherance of their objectives. While the extent of ORV use may be the subject of legitimate debate, the Court’s decision goes well beyond that issue and curtails, in general, access to the judiciary as a route around the more democratic legislative process and rule-making process of the executive branch - a welcome development, at least in the view of this writer.
Macro Trend #2 Roadless Management rules adopted late in the Clinton Administration ran roughshod over the interests of local governments and the statutory right of public access via preexisting roads, the so-called RS2477 roads. A case in point involved a federal initiative to close a road through the Shawnee National Forest in Southern Illinois. Probably the same road I once traveled, through a forest fire, en route to the Southern Illinois fluorite district. I received a telephone call from an Illinois state attorney inquiring about RS2477 rights and how the county and state might rely upon same in order to prevent closure of the road or roads in question. One concern was that the proposed closure would make it exceedingly difficult to travel from one end of the county to the other.
However, help is on the way. By an Executive Order issued August 26, 2004, President Bush ordered Federal Agencies to adopt a more cooperative (less confrontational) approach in implementing laws relating to the environment and natural resources, "with an emphasis on appropriate inclusion of local participation in federal decision making."
H.R. 2416 (S546) - Paleontological Resources Preservation Act The U.S. House of Representatives website shows no movement of this legislation subsequent to referral to several subcommittees on June 19, 2003. Accordingly, the legislation can be expected to die in committee at the end of this current Congress.
It has been hard work, but enjoyable. George Loud Chair, AFMS Conservation and Legislation Committee
Via Robert Cranston
Sunstone by Dennis Durham
1. General Sunstone is but one of the stones in the Feldspar series known as Plagioclase. These types constitute an isomorphous series between end members of Albite (Sodium Aluminium Silicate) and Anorthite (Calcium Aluminium Silicate) which combine together in varying percentages of the above types to form sub varieties expressed as follows: PLAGIOCLASE FELDSPARS Albite % Anorthite % 100 0 } Albite 90 10 } 80 20 } Oligoclase 70 30 } 60 40 } Andesine 50 50 } 40 60 } Labradorite 30 70 } ----Sunstone 20 80 } Bytownite 10 90 } 0 100 } Anorthite
The composition of Sunstone lies at the boundary between labradorite and bytownite (Albite 30 – Anorthite 70) In 1985 The Oregon State Legislature named this variety of labradorite as Sunstone and adopted it as the state gem, although it is a known fact that labradorite, bytownite and other plagioclase feldspars are also found in several places world wide.
Sunstone is found in large areas as ground material and diggings about 33 km north of Plush in Oregon, beyond the Hart Mountains near the Warner Dry Lakes. The desert areas near Plush yield a substantive amount of clear faceting material easily collected by simply picking from the desert floor. Straw coloured pieces of 2 – 3 gm are quite common and make useful sized cut stones. To the faceter, this is a US State designated collecting area and is free of charge.
The area does have rattlesnakes and can be quite uncomfortable in the summer with very high temperatures by day and very cold by night. The access road is closed from late October to the following June due to the snows.
The largest stone that I have cut from this location weighed in at 102 cts as a Portuguese cut brilliant. The stones are also found at the Ponderosa Mine, a few miles northwest of Burns on US 20 in the Ochoco National Forest area. Access to this mine is restricted.
Production from this area is mechanised and output is commercially sold. A useful range of colours are found from the straw coloured, yellowish orange, pinkish orange and lovely red. Dichroic colours of green and red are also found. Platelets of copper are seen to a varying degree in some stones, and does contribute to the colour intensity. The most valuable of cut stones of this material are the saturated reds and greens.
2.0 Properties 2.1 Optical. R.I. 1.563-1.572 Birefringence 0.009 Dispersion 0.012 Critical Angle 4 1º Lustre Vitreous Cutting Angles: Culet 43º Crown 41º 2.2 Physical Specific Gravity 2.680-2.710 Hardness 6 – 6.5 Fracture Uneven, slightly brittle Cleavage Perfect Crystal System Triclinic Heat Sensitivity Low Chemical Isomorphou Composition s series between Albite NaAlSi3O8 & Anorthite CaAl2Si2O8 Dichroism Strong in the greens
3.0 Cutting Sunstone As mentioned earlier, sunstone is but one of a series of plagioclase feldspars all of which have similar or the same cutting behaviors.
There are two basic properties that need consideration when preparing rough for cutting.
Firstly, is the material has perfect cleavage it is advisable to offset the table a few degrees, (7º - 10º) from the cleavage. To find the cleavage one need to examine the rough and spot the lamellae which follow the planes of cleavage and are observed 90º to the cleavage. This lamellae disappears with the polishing sequences.
Secondly, colored material often has spots of color intensity which needs orienting for best results, in the lower part of the pavilion that will be the culet.
At a hardness of 6 – 6.5 cutting is simple and will respond easily to most combinations of grit and lap speeds. Rough out on 220 grit or finer if the stones are small and Prepolish with 1200 grit.
Polishing is just as easy with most combinations of polish and laps, i.e. cerium oxide on Perspex at moderate speed. My preference is 50,000 diamond on tin with water as lubricant and run at some moderate speed.
References Gems Webster (1991) Faceting for Amateurs (1986) From Faceter’s Stonechat, 5/04
Via Rockcollector 10/04
The Geologist’s Lament By R. L. Frism 1940
Gather ‘round me, hear my story, I’m a rockhound in distress I’m a rockhound bathed in troubles I’m an outcast, more or less.
I have fossils in the kitchen, I have crystals in the hail. I have minerals in the bathtub; I have relics on the wall.
I have oxides on the carpet I have oil upon the floor. I have blacklight in the parlor I have bones behind each door.
Attic rooms are fairly sagging. Rocks pave the cellar floor, Pockets bulge with gemmy pieces, All of this and millions more.
Wifey thinks that I am goofy I don’t know, she may be fight. She insists I have silicosis, Or some contagious form of “ite” Says my head is lined with agate (A freak displacement of the bone), Says my brain is just a nodule. Says my heart is turned to stone.
Threatens me with separation; Storms about our rockhound home, Says life for me is just a geode Or a hunk of mammal bone.
Are you rated as a fossil? Are you obliged to live alone? How do you maintain a hobby, And still maintain a happy home?
The foregoing poem was mailed to me by Ruth Yerkes who cut it out of the “Lodestar”. Lodestar got it from ‘lodestone”, the publication of the Fort Collins Rockhound Club in Colorado. March 2001 edition.
Via Gravel Gazette 10/01
An Ideal Club Member’s Alphabet By Myrtle Griffith
Always: attend meetings Bring: someone with you Communicate: with others Develop: mutual understanding and respect Enjoy: the hobby and have fun Friendship: cherish and nurture the valuable commodity Generosity, Goals, Gentleness: use when needed Honesty: use it regularly Ideas: share with other members Jealousy: avoid like the plague Knowledge: help promote it Labor: donate when and where needed Mistakes: correct yours and overlook others Nonsense: use frequently - breaks monotony Order: help maintain at all meetings Patience: develop as much as possible, Rockhounds need a large amount Quarrels: never indulge. They serve no good purpose Rocks: study, hunt, collect, work, polish, or build with them Share: your talents, energy, knowledge with others Talent: use and improve as much as possible United: help the club stay that way Value: friends, members, yourself and the organization Work: an important ingredient, be willing to help carry the load X-rate: all gossip, malice, petty peeves and negative attitudes Yesterday: leave it where it belongs - in the past Zeal: be generous with it, encourage others to do likewise.
Source SCRIBE Jan-Feb-Mar 1993, original source unknown Via Quarry Quips 4/03
Fencepost Limestone By John Gholson, Quarry Quips 1/78
Until recently, I thought I knew quite a lot about the stone fence posts of Western Kansas. I knew where and how they were quarried, the particular bed of limestone from which they were cut, and many of the uses to which the stone was put. Then I came upon a book, “Land of the Post Rock”, written by Grace Mullenburg and Ada Swineford and published by University Press of Kansas in 1975. I probably don’t know everything there is to know about the Fencepost Limestone yet, but I know a lot more than I did. For example, I knew that the majestic “Cathedral of the Plains”, the twin-spired church at Victoria, Kansas, is built of Post Rock and at the time of its construction each male parishioner was required to furnish forty-five dollars cash and several “boat” loads of stone. A boat was a heavy wooden sled which was used to transport the stone from the quarry to the building site, although horse drawn wagons were the usual method. A boatload was a certain number of cubic feet of stone. I learned from the book that there were quite a number of churches, in other towns and settlements, built of the same material. Also corrals, storm caves, and even a filling station constructed of this easily obtained, durable and plentiful stone. The filling station, built, I believe, after World War I by a soldier who was impressed by the ornate towered stone structures of England. The station had the small square office, with roofed driveway in front, and at each corner was a round stone tower which extended several feet above the roof. In the book is a picture taken soon after the station was opened. Most of the houses were small, but several were quite pretentious, having two floors, with a large attic under a steep pitched roof. Window and door openings were frequently outlined in carved stone.
North Central Kansas was settled in the late 1860’s and 70’s, largely by immigrants from the eastern states, many of whom had only recently come to the United States from Europe. They were German, Czeck, Swedish, Norwegian and Danish, and tended to settle in communities with their own nationality. Among them were many skilled stone masons, to whom easily obtained soft limestone was a blessing in a land which had few trees and where lumber was expensive. Many had exposures of “postrock”, as it is generally known, on their land or could get it from a neighbor nearby.
The Fencepost limestone, as it is known to geologists, is a persistent bed that has been traced in oil wells as far west as Wyoming. It is the top member of the Greenhorn Limestone formation. Just above it is the Fairport chalk, and below it is the rest of the Pfeifer shale, of which the Fencepost is part. With shaly chalk both above and below, the Fencepost separates easily in solid slabs, which makes its use for building stone and fenceposts particularly convenient.
In quarrying the stone, at least three methods were used, with the wedge and feather the most popular. In this method, a series of holes were drilled almost through the layer in a straight line, the distance of the holes from the edge determining the width of the stone to be removed. Into these holes were placed two “feathers” which were tapered pieces of iron, rounded on the outside to fit the sides of the hole, and flat on the inside. Between the feathers was placed a wedge, also of iron. By carefully tapping the wedges with a hammer, a section of the limestone would break off along the line of holes. If the section was long enough it could be used for a post; if not, it became building stone. The second method was called sledging, and was used mostly to quarry building stone. The limestone was uncovered, and pieces broken from the edge by striking it with a sledgehammer. The third method came later, just before the abandonment of the use of the stone, and employed diamond or silicon saws, which cut a slitin place of the line of holes. There have been stories of using freezing to break the stone from the layer by pouring water into the holes in winter, but the authors were unable to verify the practice. Post rock is fairly soft when quarried, but hardens with exposure to the air and is very durable, as thousands of posts still standing in the Post Rock country proves.
Fencepost limestone is readily identified by from one to three rusty streaks running the length of the stone on the sides where it was broken from the layer. Then there is a single streak, it will be approximately in the middle. Fencepost is from nearly white to deep buff in color, and can be distinguished from another limestone, called Shellrock, by the absence of color and the lack of the brown streak. Shellrock is whiter and softer than Fencepost and contains many fossil shells. It comes from the Jetmore chalk member of the Greenhorn formation, about twenty feet below the Fencepost.
Another thing I learned was that the postrock was sometimes split at the brown streak in the middle, providing a building stone which was light color on one side and light brown on the other. The stone was used in both colors in the same building, to form a pattern or trim. via FROM THE ROCK PILE 2/97 ----------------------------------
Stone Fence Posts
Miles and miles of light tan, brown-streaked stone fenceposts are an attractive addition to the landscape of the Smoky Hills region of North Central Kansas. They are a tribute to the resourcefulness of the area’s early day families, faced with the need for fences and no available wooden posts.
The rock that is the source of these two-toned stone fenceposts lies near the surface of many places in a 25 mile wide strip from Washington County to Ford County, Kansas. Along valleys and across plains this strip zigzags along the Kansas prairie toward the southwest. Geologists have named the stone “Fencepost Limestone” and identified it as a bed of the Greenhorn Limestone of Cretaceous Age, a geologic period of more than 60 million years ago.
When freshly quarried, limestone from this 6 - 12 inch bed is relatively soft. After prolonged exposure to air, it hardens. Discovering that the limestone could easily be split, sawed, drilled, or notched while soft, the early settlers of north central Kansas began quarrying the rock for fence posts. The limestone was quarried by removing the overlying soil, boring holes into the rock, and then splitting it off into slabs of a convenient length or width. A sideline business was thus developed for some of the industrious pioneers who sold the posts for around 25 cents each. With no timber available, the business was brisk.
Most of the stone fenceposts were put down prior to 1900, and it was in this period that the use was the greatest. Even after the turn of the century, the use of stone fenceposts continued, due to their durable nature. By the 1920’s because of improved transportation facilities, wooden fenceposts became available at lower and lower cost. The price of the stone fenceposts continued, but the rising cost forced them off the market as a commercial venture. By 1930 the price had risen to $1 per post.
During the great depression that followed, the posts made of limestone made a small comeback, but died out again at the return of our economy to wealth. A wooden fencepost again became the cheaper to use.
The buff-colored stone fenceposts have proven durable, and many of them are still standing to this day in the spot where erected years ago. They have resisted droughts, storms, grasshopper invasions, and the ravages of nature. They are still very much a part of the landscape in the Smoky Hills region. An estimated 30 - 40 thousand miles of the stone fenceposts can be traced southwestward from Washington County to Ford County through the Smoky Hill area. They have become a trademark of this high plains region.
Taken from All Rockhounds Pow Wow Bulletin, via Rock Rollers 4/85 The Glacial Drifter 9/01
Brain Buster Ernston Bamhart
How many rocks and minerals can you find hidden in the following paragraph?
In his latest crime bulletin, Police Inspectro Litescal cites current problems: “We need new legal enactments to stop all these hoodlums who plead innocent. Some of them are real cool items who insult cop persons. I have been called skinflint and a gyp, summing up their opinion of me.
I think I’m a fair one, but after being called a spineless serpent, I nearly am berserk. It’s no whodunit, even now I am in total control. However, we’re having a crime epidemic and I am on duty too much. It’s time for me to retire a with a soda, lite beer, etc. and go fishing. Maybe I’ll catch a marlin that will make you rub your eyes!”
Answer to Brain Buster
These rocks and minerals appeared in the story: slate, tin, spectrolite, calcite, galena, opal, lead, oolite, copper, flint, gypsum, iron, spinel, serpentine, amber, dunite, talc, sard, gold, diamond, sodalite, marl, and ruby
From: Breccia 3/03 Via The Rock Bag May 2003 |