MICROBITS BULLETIN OF THE SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA MICRO-MINERALOGISTS

 

PRESIDENT Paul Adams     VICE PRESIDENT Dr. Jack Nieburger     SECRETARY Susan Hansen     TREASURER Bob White     BOARD OF DIRECTORS Juanita Curtis Jack Nieburger Paul Adams Ann Seminaris (Alternate)     FEDERATION DIRECTOR Beverly Moreau     DUES $10 Single, $15 Membership Plus     MEETINGS Third Saturday in April, August and December, 10:00 a.m. till …? Jurupa Mountains Cultural Ctr. 7621 Granite Hill Dr., Riverside     MICROBITS EDITOR Beverly Moreau (see Federation Director) bcmoreau@4dnet.com

President’s Message   I would like to thank all who contributed to the 2003 Pacific Micromount Conference.  In particular:        Garth Bricker:       Sales Table        Sue Hansen           Give-away-Table        Ann Meister:          Saturday Evening Dinner        Beverly Moreau:    Bulletin, Registration, Sat. Evening Entertainment        Gene Reynolds:      Projectionist        Sugar White:         Saturday Lunch        Bill Wise:              Auctioneer   The theme for the April meeting will be contact metamorphic minerals.  A topic near and dear to me, and appropriate, since we meet so close to one of the most famous contact metamorphic collecting sites - Crestmore Quarry.  As part of the program I will repeat a talk I gave at one of the San Bernardino County Museum Mineral Workshops about 5 years ago.  It is in part based on my Geology thesis and is entitled:  Mineralogy of the Copper World Mine and monticellite-clintonite-vesuvianite skarns from Clark Mountain, San Bernardino County, CA   Bring in contact metamorphic minerals, or others of interest for shared viewing.  We will also hopefully be able to view some Crestmore quarry minerals, for which the Jurupa Mountains Cultural Center is well known.   At the Tucson Show I purchased two flats of well-crystallized Mexican minerals. One flat consisted of yellow doubly terminated hexagonal prisms (2-4mm) of mimetite from the Minerales #5 shaft, Santa Eulalia, Chihua-hua, and the other, gray to light blue smithsonite crystals and clear bladed hemimorphite crystals from the San Antonio mine, San Antonio el Grande Chihuahua.  After taking what I was interested in, I am donating the rest to the club, for sale at the meeting and as a head start for next year's Conference sales table.  These make nice showy micromounts and thumb-nails.   Prices will be 50 cents to $2.00 per specimen.  So if you think you may be interested, bring wrapping material and small denomination bills. Exact change, please, would be greatly appreciated by the Treasurer.                                                                                                  - Paul    Directions:  From the 60 freeway (east or west), exit on Pyrite Avenue, go north under the freeway to the first signal (Granite Hill), turn right, and continue east on Granite Hill to the Jurupa Mountains Cultural Center.  Bring your scopes, minerals, and lunch.

Web Site for SCMM

 

Sunshine Corner

  We were glad to learn tht Juanita Curtis has recovered very well from the broken bone in her foot.  She has shed the cast, and is not even using the cane any more.  Julie says, “Don’t get in her way!”

  Jocelyn Thornton (from New Zealand) spent some time in Southern California recently on her way to Rochester, New York.  She was able to visit with Juanita, Julie and Carol, with Bob and Sugar White, and Garth and Janice Bricker. 

  Let us know of anyone who needs our special thoughts and prayers.. 

 

Reminder – 2003 Dues

  If you have not paid your dues for 2003, this may be your last issue of MicroBits.  Please mail your check to:

Robert White, SCMM Treasurer

2 Summit Avenue,

Redlands, CA 92373-6848 

  Don’t miss out on future issues – send in your dues now.  $10 Single, or $15 for Membership Plus (two members at the same address). U.S. mail readers, if your label has “2002” at the right, it’s dues time!!!

  A word about plus memberships. The primary mem-ber pays $10.00/year.  All other family members at the same address are Plus members and pay $5.00/year. We need the first name of the plus members.  The fee for plus members is needed to pay dues and insur-ance to the California Federation, which is the source of our Club’s liability insurance. This is the reason that ONLY dues paying members may participate in Field Trips.

 

WEB SITES AND OTHER REFERENCES OF MINERALOGICAL INTEREST

Carbonate bearing Minerals.  List of all known carbon-ate-bearing minerals.

http://www.gly.uga.edu/railsbach/CO3/CO3mins_intro.html

Ecole des Mines de Paris:  Contains catalog of mineral names origins and scientific references of mineral species.

http://www.musee.ensmp.fr/gm/lettres.html

Franklin and Sterling Hill Minerals:  species list, mineral photos, selected chapters from reference books.

http://simplethinking.com/franklinminerals/

Minerals of Australia and New Zealand:  Guide to minerals and localities.  http://crocoite.com

Nova Scotia Minerals:  Ronnie Van Dommelen’s site

“Minerals of Nova Scotia”

http://is2.dal.ca/~dommelen/mainrock.html

Mineralogy database from Norway:  GEOLIB

http://www.geosystems.no

Mineralogical Abstracts shareware database:  MinAbs by Peter Susse.  Up  to (?) 1999. http://www.psusse.de/minabs/newabs/

Tsumeb, Namibia:  Dan Weinrichs website featuring three photo galleries of  specimens from Tsumeb.

http://www.danweinrich.com

Clara Mine (German) mineral list

http://www.rbmineral.de/rb3.htm

Eudalyte:  Alkaline mineral localities of the world:

http://www.koeln.netsurf.de/~w.steffens/welcome.html

From Micromounters of New England Newsletter January 2003

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MICROMOUNTING BITS AND PIECES

Gary Glenn:  e-mail ghglenn@hotmail.com

  I use a trim saw to reduce the bulk on many specimens to be mounted.  It is less risky than breaking them.  This unfortunately creates a mud residue that must be cleaned off the specimen immediately.  It dries like cement.

  On desiccate pieces, I often dry cut them.  To do this I jam a wet rag into the blade and then cut the specimen normally.  This produces a thick paste of mud on the back of the specimen, but with a little practice this can be done so as not to affect the area of interest.

  However, when the specimen is delicate and on a silica matrix (or other very hard material), the saw will not dry cut this without damaging the blade.  The other day, in desperation, I discovered a new method.  Using paper towel-ing I made a small pad around the edge of the sample to secure the pad.  Then I cut off the back of the specimen through the tape, using sufficient water to do the job.  After rinsing the back of the sample I peeled off the tape and paper.  It worked perfectly.  The sample was wet but clean.  The paper acted like a filter to keep out the dirt.

Reprinted from Micromounters of New England Newsletter April 2003, via CMMA Micronews, Jan/Feb 2003 with permission of the author.

_____

(Editor’s Note:  The following  California news item was picked up, ironically, from the February issue of The Mineral Mite, an Arlington, Virginia publication.)

Subject:  California’s New Department

From an e-mail received January 12, 2003 by Georgia Olmstead, editor of The Mineral Mite

  The Davis Administration announced today, amid concerns of the State’s deepening budget crisis, that two major state agencies will be combined to reduce administrative costs.  Effec-tive February 1^st, 2003, the California Highway Patrol and the California Department of Fish & Game will be merged to form the new California Department of Fish & Chips.

!

AN UPDATE ON THE HARQUAHALA MINE,

LA PAZ COUNTY, ARIZONA

Paul M. Adams

            On my way back home from the Tucson Show I decided to stop off at a couple of sites and do some mineral collecting.  The first stop was the Tonopah-Belmont mine which is located about 15 miles north of Interstate 10 at Tonopah.  This mine is well known for a number of uncommon secondary minerals, which are usually found as micromounts.  Since my last visit, about 5 years ago, someone has definitely decided to make the underground workings inaccessible to man (and beast?).  The north incline/shaft was covered with a grate constructed of 4-inch diameter aluminum tubes which were spaced about 3 inches apart.  The south workings had a similar grate constructed of a box work of welded steel plates.   The outwardly curving spear points on top added a nice medieval touch.  Fortunately, most of the micromount material is found on the dumps, but since I did not see anything exciting, I spent the rest of the day hiking and exploring the adjacent hills and washes.

            The next day I stopped at the Harquahala mine, which is located about 4 miles north of Interstate 10, just off of the well-graded Hovater Road.  Mulkey (1993) does a thorough job of presenting the history of the mine.  The main original road into the mine is blocked by a large steel gate, but there are a number of trails into the area, which contains old mining equipment and the remains of an adobe structure.  The mine is known for nice micromount specimens of dioptase, pseudomalachite and malachite, the best of which were found in an open cut on the north-facing side of the hill.  I explored the cut and did find a few indications of mineralization, but nothing that was an inspiration for me to do any extended hard labor.  At a point where I was considering leaving, I noticed that some portions of the “road” were extremely dusty, in contrast to other areas where the rock chips/gravel had been washed clean by the rain.  I finally made the connection that the old bulldozers on the site were not abandoned (while definitely not new, they didn’t look decrepitated from extended exposure to the weather).  It therefore appeared that the dozers had recently been reworking some of the dumps, possibly in an attempt to block or seal some of the shafts.  This meant that the dusty material came from the dumps and hadn’t seen the light of day in years.  The first copper stained rock I cracked open revealed nicely crystallized dark green pseudomalachite groups.  A systematic search for copper stained rocks in the dusty material ensued.  Transparent light-green dioptase crystals (to 2mm), medium green botryoidal and dark green crystallized pseudomalachite and yellow-green radiating acicular malachite were relatively common.  Examples are shown in the accompanying pictures.  Since the bulldozers were still onsite, one might assume that additional material from the dumps might have been exposed since I left.

 

REFERENCES

J. E. Mulkey, "Field trip: Arizona's Harquahala District", Rock and Gem, p26-30, October 1993.

 

CFMS Scholarship Honorees to be

Feted at Seaside Gem-Boree

  Sugar White and Jim Brace Thompson, 2003 CFMS Scholarship Honorees, will receive their plaques at the Awards Banquet Saturday evening, June 7, in conjunction with the combined AFMS/CFMS Show in Ventura, California.  They will introduce their students on that occasion, and give them an opportunity to share with the attendees about their studies and goals. 

  Both Sugar and Jim have chosen University of California at Santa Barbara as their institution of choice to receive the scholarships.  The two Honorees collaborated on the selection of the students, with assistance from the Department head.  Each student will receive a $2,000 scholarship for the Fall 2003 semester, courtesy of the California Federation of Mineralogical Societies..

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Minerals recently collected from the Harquahala Mine, La Paz County, Arizona.  Top: Pseudomalachite.  Bottom Left: Dioptase.  Bottom Right: Malachite and dioptase.

 

MORE GEM-boree Highlights

Space Rock Day – Sunday, June 8 will be “Space Rock Day”.  Robert Varish, discoverer of two of the Mars Meteorites, and fellow meteorite hunter Dale Lowdermilk, will speak on finding and identifying meteorites.  Meteorites are masses of metal or stone that have fallen to earth from outer space.  You will have a chance to see a Mars meteorite, other meteorites and tektites.  There will  also be a replica of “The Old Woman” meteorite, the second largest meteorite discovered in the United States that was found in the Mojave desert.  Miniature Mars Rover vehicles will be on hand to give kids the opportunity to direct a mini-Mars Rover across an alien landscape.

Field Trips – The field Trip Committee is developing plans for some interesting trips.  A couple of different sites are being considered, based on type and availability of material, accessibility and distance.  Additional information will be forthcoming as details are finalized.

Mermaid Contest – Get your entry form in soon to participate in the Mermaid Contest.  We’re looking for jewelry, lapidary, sculpture—anything that has been worked in rock, mineral, gemstones, or a combination thereof that depicts a mermaid.  Deadline is May 1, 2003.  Forms can be downloaded from the website, or contact Ken Dearborn at (818) 883-5253 or GemboreeDisplay@aol.com.  Mail completed forms to Keri at 2092 Ave. San Luis, Woodland Hills, CA  91364.  ›

Seaside Park (formerly Ventura County Fairgrounds)

10 Harbor drive, Ventura, CA 

Hours:  Thurs. – Sat. 10-6, Sun. 10-5

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Beverly Moreau, Editor

So. California Micro-Mineralogists

3113 Topaz Lane, Apt. A

Fullerton, CA  92831-2374

bcmoreau@4dnet.com

 

 

                                                                                     FIRST CLASS

 

 

 

MICROBITS                                                                                        

 

April  – May 2003

 

 

 

 

 

Meeting 10 a.m., Saturday, April 19

Jurupa Mountains Cultural Center, Riverside