THE 790th MEETING
OF
THE MINERALOGICAL SOCIETY
OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

10:00AM to 5:00PM
Saturday and Sunday

December 13th and 14th, 2003

The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County
900 Exposition Blvd., Los Angeles

The 56th Annual MSSC Show

This Year’s theme

Silver

December Program

On the 13th and 14th of December, 2003 The Mineralogical Society of Southern California will hold its 56th Annual Show [GemFest] at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.  The hours are from 10:00AM to 5:00PM both days.  Admission to the Museum provides access to the show.  This years show theme is Silver. Due to the fact that the majority of the membership will be involved in the show the show will be the December meeting.

January Program

by Cathy Casey

The Annual Installation Banquet and Meeting will be held on Saturday evening, January 24, 2004 at the Oak Tree Room, 1150 East Colorado Blvd., in the City of Arcadia. The price for the Banquet is $30.00 per ticket and includes the all you can eat Buffet. Happy Hour with no host bar serving beer and wine only, begins at 5:30 p.m., with Prime Rib, Salmon and Chicken buffet dinner beginning at 6:30 p.m. Casey Jones of Geoprime Minerals will speak following the buffet, Meeting, and Installation of Officers. Reservations can be made to my phone number and voice mail no later than January 20th: (626)484-2774 or e-mail reservations and inquiries to: caseyscurios@earthlink.net.  See the January Bulletin for more details.

MSSC Board Meeting

The MSSC Board will meet at 1 p.m. on Sunday, January 25, at the home of Janet Gordon.  Lunch will be served, and the meeting will focus on our show.  All interested members are invited to attend.  More details to follow in the January bulletin.

Dues are Due

Don’t forget to pay your dues for 2004. You will receive a notice in the mail soon.

Show Information and Locations

As has been said many times, this show is for you. The show committee under the direction of Carolyn Seitz has spent many hours organizing the show for your enjoyment, so don’t miss it. 

The gem and mineral dealers are located in the Grand Foyer, Main Hallways, African Mammal Hall, and North American Mammal Hall.   The educational displays and exhibits are in the Cenozoic Hall and the Rotunda.   All Society meetings, and Speakers will be in the Lecture Room on the Second Floor.  Kid Rocks, Rockhound Corner, and Craft Exhibits are in the Second Floor Mammal Hall.

First Floor Activities

Dealers

Anterro Minerals and Jewelry             Attard’s Minerals 

J. P. & D. Cand Minerals                                China Minerals and Gems      

C. T. Minerals                                                 Dahnke Intermark      

Dale’s Minerals                                               Douglass Minerals

The Eclectic Lapidary                                     Fenn’s Gems and Minerals

The Gallery                                                     Gemart Services         

Gemini Minerals                                              Gem Artists of North America

Geoprime Minerals                                          Gochenauer’s Gems and Minerals

Graeber and Himes                                         Bob Griffis Minerals

Kristalle                                                           Legett Designs           

Lehigh Minerals                                              Mineral of the Month Club

Miners Lunchbox                                            Mineralogical Research Company

M. K. Gems                                                    Marianne Hunter                    

Nevada Mineral and Book                              North American Gem Carvers

Originals by Carol Sues                                  Ossola-Mineraux                                

Pala International                                             Paleo Facts                             

RayCyn Minerals                                            Rocks and Relics                                

San Andreas Minerals                                     Seibel Minerals                       

Spencer Opals                                                 Steve Perry Minerals                          

Su’s Creations                                                 Tom Wolfe Minerals                          

Usman Imports                                                Whole Earth Minerals            

Wendy’s Minerals

Exhibits

Fluorescent Mineral Society Educational Exhibits in the Cenozoic Fossil Hall

Exhibitors in the Rotunda

Jesse Fisher                             Al Ordway                              Tim Sherburn 

Robert C. Weaver                   Susan Weaver                         Bill & Elizabeth Moller

Carl Acosta                             Natural History Museum         Chuck Houiser

Julianna & Jennifer Houser     Irv Brown                                Rick Kennedy

Cathy McNassor                     Chris Korpi                             John Schwarze

Steven Pullman                       Georg Gebhard                       Jim Steinberg  

Ken Raabe                              Bill Besse                                Gemini  Minerals

Sandy Taylor                           Anne Seminaris                       Gochenour Minerals   

Chad & Kelsey Stevens          Joseph Simon                          La Brea

Fallbrook Gem & Mineral Society     

John Woodward & Becky Nelson     

Calif State Mining & Mineral Museum          

Second Floor Activities

Kid Rock:

Free mineral samples for kids age 3 to 16 to make a mineral collection. How Hard are Minerals?  Find out by scratching them!  Crystal Quest: Earn a prize by searching the Gem and Mineral Hall for mineral facts. (En Español: Busqueda de Cristales)  Minerals in Your Life: An interactive matching game of minerals and products  Crystal Crafts: Make and decorate crystal models or color crystal drawing.

Rockhound Corner

If you have an unknown rock, mineral or gem specimen, bring it to our experts for instant identification.  All identifications will be by visual examination only, and represent the best estimate of the expert.  No valuations will be given.  See if you can stump the expert.

Arts and Crafts

There are two separate gem carving groups participating in the show – North American Gem Carvers, and Gem Artists of North America – each with very impressive wares to display and to sell. We’ll have demonstrations by the Southern California Carvers Guild, a demonstration of making fused glass jewelry, a wire wrap demonstrator, and a jewelry making demonstrator with wonderful, inexpensive things to sell.

Society Meetings

Saturday

11:00 A.M.

Joint Meeting of the Southern California Chapter of the Friends of Mineralogy, & the Southern California Micro-Mineralogists

Speakers: Jim Clanin: “The Cryo-Genie Gemstone Suite”

Jeffrey Patterson: “The Cryo-Genie Pegmatite Mine -A Vision of Gemstones for the New Millennium” 

Lecture Room - Second Floor

3:30 P.M.

The Geo-Literary Society

Speaker: Mary Murphy; "Gemological Treasures in L.A. County Rare Book Libraries."

Lecture Room - Second Floor

Featured Speakers

Saturday

1:15 P.M.

Dr. Georg  Gebhard

“The History of Silver”

Noted author and lecturer Dr. Georg Gebhard will trace the fascinating story of silver beginning with its earliest known use during the Bronze Age (ca. 4000 BC). Evidence of man's use of silver in ancient times has been found in India, Egypt, China, Troy, Persia, and Greece among others. Numerous silver objects have been disinterred at prehistoric sites in Spain, which seems to be the principal early source for the metal. Reports dating back to the Middle Ages describe silver occurring naturally as wires or dent-like aggregates growing out of the surface of rocks. The oldest specimen of natural silver that has been preserved dates back to the 15th century.

Sunday

11:00 A.M.

Dr. Anthony Kampf

“Ninety Years of Gems and Minerals

at the Natural History Museum”

To celebrate the 90th Anniversary of the Natural History Museum and the 25th Anniversary of the Hall of Gems and Minerals, Tony will trace the history of gems and minerals at the Natural History Museum. Tony has been sifting through the Museum's archives to uncover little known stories and photos. Discover the early roots of our collection and learn about some of our most important acquisitions. Meet the personalities who shaped the Museum's gem and mineral collection and exhibits. See what the Museum's first Mineral Hall was like and watch our current hall take shape.

1:00 P. M.

Robert Jones

“Great Silver Discoveries”

Popular columnist, writer and lecturer Bob Jones will share highlights of some of the world's great silver discoveries, including those in Michigan, Nevada, Germany, and Canada, including some startling and often humorous tales. One such tale involves the misguided efforts of miners to free a huge mass of copper/silver at a mine in Michigan. The miners strapped barrels of black powder to the mass and let'er rip. When the dust settled, the mass was left intact, but the buildings on the surface were reduced to rubble.

A Final Editorial

by Walt Margerum

I have just completed my third and final year as Editor of your Bulletin. Janet Gordon will assume the duties beginning with the January issue.  I pass on to her the following comments, and suggestions.

As you will find out, and most probably know, it takes more time and effort than anticipated.  Your regular input will almost always be late, and you will have to harass those responsible more than you want.  They will continuously ask when the input is due.  It is the 20th of the month; just like it has been since 1931!  Everyone will comment on how great a job you are doing, but less than 10% of the membership will give you any help.  The next Bulletin will be due out almost before the last one was mailed.  Time flies when you are having fun!  Your personality will irreversibly change.  You will become short tempered and cantankerous.  If you don’t believe me just look at your predecessors. 

After your term is finished you will feel relieved, and fulfilled.  Relieved in the same way you feel after a root canal.  Fulfilled in that you found a sucker to replace you!  I wish you all the luck in the world. 

Minutes of the November Meeting

The 789th meeting of the MSSC was called to order by President Jo Anna Ritchey at 7:35 p.m. on Nov. 14, 2003.  Candidates for officers and directors for the year 2004 as published in the September bulletin were unanimously elected.  Janet Gordon moved that the MSSC sign a letter in opposition to the Forest Service demonstration fee program (Adventure Pass).  The motion carried unanimously.  Justin Butt announced the field trip to the Ocean View mine for Sunday, Nov. 16, and displayed a kunzite and tourmaline that he had found there on a previous trip.  Discussion of the show was deferred until after the talk.

Rock Currier gave an excellent presentation about minerals of the Andes with information about mining localities in Chile, Peru, and Bolivia.  His slides made it obvious that the Andean region is rugged and undeveloped, and travelers have challenges with very high altitudes and harsh climate.  His many mineral slides made it clear that it was worth going.

The tour began in Chile with the copper mines of Chuquicamata, which include the world's largest mine.  The 4 km by 2 km by 900 m deep pit is crossed by a very active fault that keeps the rock mechanics group at the mine busy.  A lesser pit nearby is more mineralogically interesting with seams of chrysocolla up to 1 m thick.  The next event was a tale of collecting atacamite at Copiapo in a dicey stope with occasional rocks falling from the roof.  The atacamites were beautiful, but the collecting was terminated before the collectors were. We then got a look at some of the historic silver mines and the magnificent proustite they produced, as well a cyantrichite locality before moving onto Peru. After advice on buying minerals in Lima, occurrences of prismatic orpiment, pyrite in all shapes and sizes, tetrahedrite, enargite, hubnerite, rhodochrocite were described. 

In Bolivia many mines are worked by hand, which facilitates specimen recovery.  Militant miners have taken over defunct mines formerly owned by the state in order to eke out a living, and the environments cost of mining has escalated largely because acid water is now allowed to drain out of the lower adits.  Nonetheless, there fine cassiterite and vivianite are produced.

Rock gave us a historic stop at Llallagua with a photo of Mark Bandy's previous home, and an illustrated review of Llallagua's famous phosphate minerals: vauxite, paravauxite, wavellite, vivianite, and others.  Lastly, was a traverse across the vast solar to a sulfur mine on the border with Chile.  As usual with Rock's talks, there were interesting personal stories associated with the localities.

A discussion of the up-coming show followed.  Bill Besse gave a report for Carolyn Seitz who was in Costa Mesa contacting dealers.  Janet Gordon commented on the Kids' Activities and procedures for volunteers.  The meeting concluded with the introduction of guests.