Web
Site for SCMM
Jennifer Rohl is the web master for SCMM.
Following is the link to the web site:
http://www.mineralsocal.org/micro/index.html
If you are receiving the e-mail version of
Micro-Bits, you should be able to click on the above URL and go immediately to
the web site..
ROCKHOUNDS LIVE
FOREVER
By
Hugh Sheffield
From: Outcroppings 5/02
(8th
place 2003 AFMS Adult Poetry)
Though our bodies may age and
die
On this one truth you can rely,
Rockhounds live forevermore
In all the beauty we still adore.
For teaching, science and trade
Will soon from our memories fade.
But a Rockhound’s beautiful stones
and ware
Are preserved
forever here.
We see a gem or specimen bright
And know a Rockhound valued this
sight
From nature’s
lure of minerals great
These lowly Rockhounds did create.
So mourn not their passing by.
For in their hobby Rockhounds
never die.
FEDERATON
DIRECTOR’S
REPORT
During the CFMS Directors’ Meeting at Ventura in June, it was decided to reissue some of the CFMS manuals that
have become outdated. They will also
eventually be accessible on the web site, www. cfmsinc.org. This will be helpful, since not everyone
has copies of the manuals.
The site of the Fall Directors’ Meeting has
been changed from Visalia to Fresno. The meeting will be held
November 8 and 9 this year. If the new
venue is acceptable, it will become the future site of the Fall Meetings.
As CFMS Scholarship Chairman for 2003, it was
a pleasure to introduce Sugar White as CFMS Scholarship Honoree at the CFMS
Awards Banquet during the combined 2003 AFMS/CFMS Show and Convention. She was awarded her plaque at that time.
Sugar introduced her student, Michael Busby, a Geology major at the University of California at Santa
Barbara.
Jim Brace-Thompson of the Ventura Gem &
Mineral Society, also a CFMS Scholarship Honoree, was awarded his plaque as
well. He introduced his student Julie
Fosdick, also a student at U. C. Santa Barbara.
Beverly Moreau,
CFMS Director for SCMM
_____
MICROBITS PUBLICATION
REDUCED TO FOUR ISSUES PER YEAR
In
conjunction with the reduction in the number of meetings for SCMM, the
newsletter also was cut to four issues per year. These will be in December (Conference issue),
an “Itty Bits” immediately following the Conference (in February), in April,
and in August.
Your contribution of articles is not only
encour-aged, but actively solicited.
After all, this is your newsletter. Thanks to Paul, Sugar and Roger for their
articles for this issue.
If you have news items for the MicroBits,
please send them to your Editor in advance of these dates. Presently, I am without an internet
pro-vider, since my new DSL connection failed after six weeks following
installation, and the provider canceled me out, saying I was “too far from
their equipment”.
I have a pending installation by Adelphia, my
cable company, on August 14. They indicated my new address would probably
be:
bcmoreau@adelphia.net.
If you need to contact me after that date,
try that address. Should it change, I
will notify Jennifer Rohl, our web master.
You might contact
Jennifer for any possible change in my e-mail address at rohl@earthlink.net.
- Your Editor
September
27-28, Downey, CA
Delvers Gem
& Mineral Society
Women’s Club
of Downey
9813
Paramount Blvd.
Hours: Sat.
10-6; Sun. 10-4
Earl Liston
(562) 865-1348
October 11-12,
Trona, CA
Searles Lake Gem & Mineral
Society
SL
Gem Show Bldg. 13337 Main
St.
Hours: Sat, 8-5, Sun. 8-4
Bonnie
Fairchild (760) 372-5356
October 18, Canoga Park, CA
Woodland Hills
Rock Chippers, Inc.
Canoga Park Community
Center
7248
Owensmouth Avenue
Hours: 10-5
E-mail: show@rockchippers.org
October 18-19,
Whittier, CA
Whittier Community
Center
7630
Washington Avenue
Hours: 10-5
both days
Jay Valle
(626) 934-9764 or
E-mail: jvalle@aqmd.gov
November 1-2, Oxnard, CA
Oxnard Gem &
Mineral Society
“California Gems”
Oxnard Performing
Arts & Convention
Center, 800 Hobson
Way
Hours: Sat. 9-5, Sun. 9-4
Lois Allmen
(805) 483-6871
E-mail: allmen@vcss.k12.ca.us
November
15-16, Palmdale, CA
Palmdale
Mineral Society (61st show)
“Golden
Harvest of Gems”
Scottish Rite Temple @ 6151 H
Street
Hours: Fri. 9-5, Sat 10-6, Sun. 10-4
Tom (916)
729-1820 or Jim 685-4111
December 6-7, San
Bernardino, CA
Orange
Belt Mineralogical Society.
“World of Gems
2003”
San Bernardino
Woman’s Club
603 31st
Street
Hours: Sat 10-6, Sun. 10-5
Lyle Strayer
(909) 887-3394
E-mail: ECHOBYRD@aol.com
SEE
A SHOW
Micromounters’ Symposium and
Swap
Hendersonville, N.C.
On Saturday, August 30, 2003,
we will have our annual “symposium”, a micromounters’ workshop and swap in Hendersonville,
N. C. As usual, this is in conjunction
with the Henderson County Gem and Mineral Society’s gem and mineral
“Spectacular” on August 29-September 1, and with the Henderson County Apple
Festival. The gem and mineral show will
be held at the Whitmire Activity
Building on Lily
Pond Road.
The micromounters will meet at the same location as last year, the
Salvation Army building on East Fourth Ave.
and Grove Street.
The doors open at 8:30 a.m.,
and the activities will continue into the afternoon. No fee will be charged for
participating. However, registration
will be required, and if you have lunch with us you will be asked to pay $3.00
(an inexpensive lunch). Sandwiches and
other good items will be available for lunch from 11:30 to 1:00. As usual, drinks and snacks will be available
all day.
We will have many giveaways (including yours, if you have something to
share), door prizes, free parking, and lots of fun and fellow-ship. We are looking forward to lots of swapping,
selling, seeing old friends and making new ones. We hope to have with us our club members from
England again
this year. They belong to the club in Norwich.
We provide tables, chairs, and the power for equipment; you might want
to bring an extension cord in case we do not have enough. Bring your microscopes, tools and
supplies. We may have a shortage of
tables, so bring a small table, if it’s convenient.
Plan to come for our wonderful weekend of micros, the gem and mineral
show, and the apple festival. You will
enjoy visiting the outstanding Mineral and Lapidary Museum of Henderson County,
which is only one block away, and admission is free. The museum has some new exhibits that you may
not have seen. You must come and have
fun with us. We are looking forward to
seeing you.
Sincerely,
Roger
C. Barnett, 115 Hillpine Dr., Simpsonville,
SC, 29681
– Tel. 864-963-5283
Emily
J. Adams, 355 Pelham Rd., Greenville,
SC 29615,
Tel. 864-271-3877
Tuesday, May 13, 2003
Ï Ï Ï Ï Ï Ï Ï Ï Ï Ï Ï Ï Ï Ï Ï Ï Ï Ï Ï Ï
Marcelle Horne Weber
(1918-2003)
The
micromount world has lost an active advocate.
Marcelle Weber passed away after losing a long battle with cancer.
Marcelle was born and educated in Indiana. She
and her husband, Charles (Charlie), residents of Connecticut, joined the New Haven Mineral Club in
1956, which started an active association with microminerals. They have been active in the New Haven Club,
the Stanford Mineralogical Society, Friends of Mineralogy, and Friends of
Saint-Hilaire. Marcelle actively
participated in the Rochester Symposium, Micromounters of New England
Symposium, and Arthur Roe Symposium in Tucson, and she was inducted into the
Micromounters Hall of Fame in 1992.
Marcelle, along with her husband, has contributed to the knowledge of
minerals from Mont St. Hilaire.
In view of her close relationship with the
staff of the Canadian Museum of Nature, and to Mont St. Hilaire,
Charlie has asked that donations in her memory be made to a mineral acquisition
fund in her name at the Canadian Museum of Nature.
Donations may be sent to Canadian Museum of Nature, P. O. Box 3443,
Station D, Ottawa, ON KIP 6P4, ATTN:
Robert Gault - CONFIDENTIAL.
From
Sugar White
MICROMINERALOGY OF THE BLUE MONSTER MINE,
INYO COUNTY, CALIFORNIA
Paul M. Adams
The Blue Monster Mine is located in Section
17, T12S, R37E on the east flank of the Inyo
Mountains in Inyo
County, CA. It can be reached by taking Route 168 east
from Big Pine, turning right onto the Death Valley
Road, and then by taking the Waucoba-Saline Valley
Road 20 miles south into the Saline Valley
and Death Valley National
Park. The
Saline Valley Road is a
relatively well-maintained gravel road, but after storms, sections up in
mountain canyons can become rocky. In
the valley, the road often develops a considerable washboard surface, which
makes for a less than pleasant driving experience. At about 20 miles south of the Death
Valley Road a gravel road leads west and outside
of the National Park (the Saline Valley Road
is the western boundary of the park).
After 2 miles a jeep trail leads south into a rocky wash and after about
1.5 miles it leads west up a narrow canyon and past the base of the tram for
the Blue Monster Mine.
On my second visit I found the canyon
blocked by a small rock fall. On a visit
last year, however, I found that the fall had been cleared to the point that
even a large 4X4 can just "wiggle" between the few large remaining
boulders. About 100 yards past the
tram, a canyon leads to the north. By
hiking up this canyon a short distance, a trail can be found that leads east
and switchbacks up 400 feet vertically to the Blue Monster Mine. This trail is highly preferable to the
frontal assault I made on the narrow canyon walls during my first visit when I
did not know if/where a trail existed
The Blue
Monster Mine, formerly known as the Monster Mine, was a lead prospect that was
discovered in 1907 [1-2]. The workings
consisted of several short tunnels and surface pits, at an elevation of 4800
feet. The country rock consists of
limestones and spotted schists and the main ore body consisted of a 3.5-foot
wide by 40-foot long galena vein in milky quartz. The ore was transported to the base of the
canyon by means of a 1500-foot long tram.
The ore was carried by pack animals west, up (4000 feet) and over the
crest of the Inyo Mountains to Mazourka Canyon and then hauled to the railroad
siding at Kearsage (Citrus) 5 miles east of Independence in the Owens Valley. The 7.5' topographic map shows a portion of a
tramway that may also have been used to transport ore up the East Side of the Inyo Mountains.
Pyrite,
tetrahedrite, cerussite, chrysocolla, caledonite and linarite were reported
from the dumps in 1912-14, at which time the mine was inactive [1-2]. When visited during the 1930's [3] the mine
comprised 6 claims and was owned by a Dr. John McLean of Los Angeles. The workings then consisted of a tunnel and
an open stope 200 feet long, by 12 feet in width, which extended from the
tunnel level to the surface. In 1935 the
mine was worked by leasers who shipped 50 tons of ore to the U. S. Smelting
Refining and Mining Company's smelter in Midvale, Utah. The ore was reported to contain $100 per ton
in lead and silver.
The
presence of linarite and caledonite sparked my interest in visiting the Blue
Monster Mine [1-2]. Today the workings
consist of a tunnel that has caved at about 50 feet from the entrance and a
surface pit. The reported 200 foot long
stope, open to the surface, is not currently evident. There is relatively little, to no, evidence
of secondary lead or copper minerals in either the tunnel or surface pit. However, by diligently searching the dumps
one can find localized concentrations of interesting minerals. Clumps of galena several inches across are
relatively common. While I did find a
few traces of linarite and brochantite, they were not well crystallized. The most interesting crystallized mineral
from the Blue Monster Mine was one that was not even originally reported –
vanadinite. Vanadinite crystals occur in
a number of different colors and habits.
The most common are dark gray tapering prisms that often have a cream
colored outer layer and coat limestone breccia fragments. Light brown simple hexagonal prisms, cream
colored equant to tabular hexagonal crystals (to 1 mm), and very rounded,
almost botryoidal light gray aggregates (0.5 mm) were also found.
The most interesting habit, represented by a single
specimen found on the dumps, was that of subparallel aggregates of crystals
forming a sort of “hand grenade” structure.
Other microminerals that occur, but not in abundance, include
pyromorphite as small (0.25 mm) cream colored crystals, (Continued next page)
Micromineralogy of the Blue Monster Mine (Continued)
often associated with reddish
brown micro mottramite. I also found a
few specimens of bladed hemimorphite, small dark brown pseudocubic beudantite
and minute (0.25 mm) light yellow-green calcian-duftite clusters.
The Blue Monster Mine is a small, out of the
way locality that takes a little determination to get to. While there are interesting microminerals to
be found there, in general, they are small and do not occur in abundance. With this in mind, additional careful
searching with a hand lens or microscope will probably reveal more unreported
species and, as I learned on my last trip, the Blue Monster Mine may still hold
some surprises. As I was preparing to
leave, there staring at me in plain view from the dumps was a 3” x 4” x 3”
block of limestone covered on four sides with 3-5 mm relatively undamaged gray
prismatic vanadinite crystals. A careful
search of the surrounding area, however, failed to uncover any other specimens.
REFERENCES
1. A. Knopf, “Minerals resource
of the Inyo and White Mountains, California”, U. S. Geol. Survey Bull.
540, p. 111. (1914).
2. A. Knopf, “A geologic
reconnaissance of the Inyo range and eastern slope of the southern Sierra Nevada, California”, U. S. Geol. Survey Prof.
Paper. 110, p. 117-118 (1918).
3. W. Tucker and R. Sampson,
"Mineral Resources of Inyo County", California Div. Mines Report 34, p. 447 (1938).
Figure
Caption: Views of the Blue Monster Mine
workings, eastern Inyo Mountains, Inyo County, CA.
Figure
Caption: Top and lower-left: Vanadinite crystals
(to 3 mm) collected from the dumps of the Blue Monster Mine, Inyo County, CA. Lower-right: Hemimorphite
crystals (5 mm) from the Blue Monster Mine.
Carlos do Prado do Barbosa (1917-2003)
The July –August Mineralogical Record
announced the death of the well-known Brazilian Mineral Dealer, Carlos Barbosa,
at age 86. Carlos became a mineral
dealer after retirement and was a regular at Tucson.
Yes, he had those wonderful large specimens that have made Brazil famous, but Carlos was a serious
mineralogist and he also brought the rare and tiny things that endeared him to
micromineral collectors. Carlos died on April
7, 2003 and is
buried at the tiny cemetery in Linopolis.
An informed obituary can be found on pages
291-292 of the July-August 2003 issue of the Mineralogical Record. Luis Menezes, whom Carlos inspired to become
a dealer, wrote the obituary. Like
Carlos, Luis is a serious mineralogist who finds room to bring us the rare and
tiny along with the pieces that make museum curators drool. Be sure and read Luis’ tribute to Carlos.
From
Sugar White
Beverly Moreau, Editor
So. California Micro-Mineralogists
FIRST
CLASS
MICROBITS
