August 2017 West Seattle Petroglyphs Page 1 Volume 52, Number 7
Monthly Bulletin of the West Seattle Rock Club, Inc.
Seattle, Washington
Website: http://www.westseattlerockclub.org
Our Club: Practices the Rockhound Code of Ethics
Meetings: Visitors are always welcome!
WEST SEATTLE PETROGLYPHS
Mike Wall, Editor P.O. Box 16145 Seattle, WA 98116
email: [email protected]
August 2017
Aqua Aura Quartz August 2017 West Seattle Petroglyphs Page 2
WEST SEATTLE ROCK CLUB, INC. Mailing Address: P.O. BOX 16145, Seattle, WA 98116
The purpose of this Club is to promote the study and enjoyment of the Lapidary Arts with good Rock- hounding and good fellowship; and to further education and lapidary skills for all; to conduct field trips for exploration and collection of minerals, gems, rocks and fossils; to promote shows and displays; to publish a monthly periodical known as West Seattle PETROGLY PHS relating to club activities.
**************************************************************************************** OFFICERS AND BOARD OF DIRECTORS (2017):
President Diane Christensen (206) 582-2267 Vice President Hannah Roberts (206) 412-5498 Secretary Sue Fox (206) 835-0774 Treasurer Audrey Vogelpohl (206) 932-3292 Federation Director Audrey Vogelpohl (206) 932-3292 Director at Large Ken Schmidt (206) 932-3626 Mineral Council Reps Katherine Koch (425) 765-5408 Seattle Regional Reps Lyle Vogelpohl (206) 932-3292 Newsletter - Editor Mike Wall (206) 476-6471 Current Past President Rich Babcock (206) 326-8951
**************************************************************************************** COMMITTEE CHAIRPERSONS (2017):
Show Chair (2018) Diane Christensen (206) 582-2267 Programs
**************************************************************************************** AFFILIATED WITH: Northwest Federation & American Federation of Mineralogical Societies Seattle Regional Gem and Mineral Show Committee Washington State Mineral Council ALAA – American Lands Access Association
**************************************************************************************** Meetings are held on the Fourth Wednesday of each month, except for November which is the THIRD Wednesday and no meetings in July and December The meetings are held in Adams Hall of the Tibbetts United Methodist Church 3940 41st S.W. (corner of 41st S.W. and S.W. Andover Street) Seattle, WA 6:00 PM – Junior Meeting 7:00 PM – Adult Meeting Dues are: $20.00 first year (including name badge), then: $10.00 per adult member per year or $15.00 for 2 adults in same family, $3.00 per junior member per year
VISITORS ARE INVITED AND ARE ALWAYS WELCOME TO ALL MEETINGS
All material in this Bulletin may be reprinted if properly credited - Exchange Bulletins are most welcome. August 2017 West Seattle Petroglyphs Page 3
CLUB CALENDAR about enhanced stones, and be sure to bring an enhanced stone for show and tell. August 23, 2017 Rock on, Junior Meeting (6:15 pm) Diane Christensen
Program: Maps—Annette Nelson
General Meeting (7:00 pm) WHAT’S INSIDE
Program: Enhanced Rocks — YouTube Videos Club Calendar 3
Show & Tell: Enhanced Rocks President’s Message 3
What’s Inside 3
8/21/17 3 PRESIDENT’S WSRC June General Meeting Minutes 4 MESSAGE 2017 Refreshments 5
Hello fellow rockhounds - The Fukang Meteorite...And Pallasites 5
Largest Oriented Pallasite 6 The July picnic was a success. The weather was great, and we were able to get a spot in the WSRC July Fieldtrip–Garnets 7 shade. A big thank-you goes out to Ken Schmidt for grilling all the burgers and hot Having Fun: Junior Activities 8 dogs. The members brought a great variety of food. Thanks also goes out to Russ Thom, Peter Working With Faulty Electrical Equipment and Carole Jennings and Mary Bentler for do- Can Make You Become A Real Live Wire! 9 nating items to the auction. A total of $167 was collected from sales at the auction. Auqa Aura Quartz 9
The field trip to collect garnets had a great turn 2017 Field Trips 10 out. There were 16 members, friends and fami- ly total. Again, thanks Ken Schmidt for making 2017 Shows 10
sure everyone had garnets to bring home. If you were not able to make this trip, sorry but you 8/21/17 will have to wait until July 2018. (You can only collect garnets near Heather Lake in the month of July).
The program this month will be on enhanced rocks. We will be watching you-tube vide- os. Enhanced stones can be heated treated or infused to alter the color and clarity. It can be infused or filled with an oil, wax, glass, resin or other material (colored or colorless) to improve the stones appearance. Stones could also be bleached or dyed. Some stones like opals are Only humans could make this much fuss coated to alter surface consistency and durabil- over a shadow. ity. Come to the meeting (August 23rd) to learn August 2017 West Seattle Petroglyphs Page 4
WEST SEATTLE ROCK CLUB – GENERAL MEETING MINUTES
June 28, 2017
Business: The meeting was called to order by President Diane Christensen. Sue Fox announced there were 13 adult members, 2 junior members and 1 guest present. The door prizes were won by Emily Brune, Mike Wall, Na- taly Quevedo, Lola Smith, and Irwin Shenker
Committees: Junior Advisor Coordinator (Audrey Vogelpohl): Annette Nelson was the junior program presenter – topic: “How to Prep for a Field Trip”. Tonight’s program was the 3rd requirement for the field trip badge. Seattle Regional (Lyle Vogelpohl): no update, Lyle not in attendance. Northwest Federation (Audrey Vogelpohl): no update, Audrey not in attendance. Treasurer Report (Audrey Vogelpohl): Audrey not in attendance; Irwin Shenker became a member (Welcome to the club, Irwin!) Editor's report (Mike Wall): The next Petroglyphs will be published in August. Washington Mineral Council (Kat Koch): no update, Kat not in attendance. Librarian (Jim Ewins): no update, Jim not in attendance. Refreshments for the meetings (Sue Fox): August meeting: Joe Moushey and Herb Vail will bring snacks, Brooke Wagner will bring drinks. Historian (Annette Nelson): no update Field Trips and Shows: 5 spots are still available at the NW Rockhound Retreat, West of Fossil OR, September 7-14 July fieldtrip for garnets (Heather Lake Trailhead #1526) Surveying club members for the date that works for most. Diane has driving directions available and will tag roads signs to help guide Will need a NW Forest pass ($5 per day or $30 per year, available at Big5 in Westwood Village) or there is a day pass machine at the trailhead parking lot. Mandatory to have a copy of the WA Dept of Fish and Wildlife “Gold and Fish” rules for Mineral Prospecting and Placer Mining. Meet in the parking lot at 11:00am (so plan on leaving Seattle around 8am) 3 hour drive each way, 50-minute hike No cell service available If you can’t make this trip, the NW Federation has a trip planned August 5
New Business: Board meeting: The next board meeting will be on August 2nd, location TBD. JULY PICNIC, July 26th, start around 5pm Location: Me-Kwa-Mooks Park (4503 Beach Drive SW, Seattle, 98116) Club to provide hamburgers, hot dogs, buns Seating limited – may want to bring a chair Auction at the picnic (if you have rocks to donate, please bring them)
(Continued on page 5) August 2017 West Seattle Petroglyphs Page 5
(Continued from page 4) THE FUKANG Show and Tell: What is your favorite METEORITE...AND rockhounding tool? Dave Clausen and Diane Christensen had their PALLASITES entire backpacks on display www.amusingplanet.com/2013/05/the-beautiful- Lola Smith: garnets from last year’s field trip fukang-meteorite.html inspired by the July/August 2016 Franklin County Rockhounder. And, yes, these Annette Nelson: hammer, rock bucket, agates can be found at the Tucson show. and garnets that she has collected Amy Prehm: wet wipes, collapsible shovel (with a serrated edge to cut roots), carnelian, jasper, petrified wood Lola Smith won the “show and tell” raffle
Program: Field trips – tools and planning Dave Clausen gave a fantastic presentation showing his rockhounding tools and everything in his back- pack. Diane Christensen gave us the “girl version” backpack.
The meeting was adjourned; Refreshments were served.
Respectfully Submitted, Sue Fox, WSRC Secretary
2017 The Fukang meteorite, believed to be some 4.5 billion years old, which is as ancient as Earth itself, was un- REFRESHMENTS earthed near a town of the same name in China, in 2000. It is a pallasite, a type of meteorite with translu- cent golden crystals of a mineral called olivine em- Note: The sign-up sheet is available at our meetings. bedded in a silvery honeycomb of nickel-iron. It’s a Please signup. Note: All the spaces are full for this gorgeous meteorite, and possibly the most stunning year. Thanks to everyone for bringing refreshments! extraterrestrial piece of rock man has ever seen. If you were not able t support this year, you will have another chance next year. The Fukang meteorite was found by a hiker. The man had often stopped and had lunch on this giant rock, This Month — and he always wondered what the metal and crystals were. He finally took a hammer and chisel and broke August some pieces off, which he sent to the USA to confirm that it was a meteorite. Snacks: Joe Moushey (15-20) Herb Vail (15-20) The original meteorite weighed just over a thousand Drinks: Brooke Wagner (30-40) kilograms, but the rock was so brilliant that every- body wanted a ——————————————————- piece of it. Since Follow-on month reminders: then it has been divided into September dozens of thin slices and auc- Snacks: Amy Prehm (15-20) tioned or distrib- Diane Christensen (15-20) uted around the Drinks: Sue Fox (30-40) world.
A total of thirty- (Continued on page 6) August 2017 West Seattle Petroglyphs Page 6
(Continued from page 5) scribed by Pallas in 1776 was one of the examples one kilograms of specimen is on deposit at University used by E.F.F. Chladni in the 1790s to demonstrate of Arizona. Marvin Killgore of the University of Ari- the reality of meteorite falls on the Earth, which were zona’s Southwest Meteorite Centre holds the largest at his time considered by most scientists as fairytales. portion weighing at 420 kg. In 2008, this piece was This rock mass was dissimilar to all rocks or ores expected to fetch $2 million at an auction at Bonhams found in this area (and the large piece could not have in New York but, unfortunately, the prospective bid- been accidentally transported to the find site), but its ders were more impressed with a couple of pieces of content of native metal was similar to other finds 130-million-year-old fossilized dinosaur’s dung that known from completely different areas. day, which sold at more than twice the estimate. Wikipedia
Esquel Meteorite and jewelry made from it.
——————————— (via Rocky Trails, 8/17) Pallasites ——————————— Pallasites are a rare type of stony-iron meteorite. They consist of centimeter-sized olivine crystals of peridot LARGEST ORIENTED quality in an iron-nickel matrix. Coarser metal areas develop Widmanstätten patterns upon etching. Only PALLASITE 61 are known to date, including 10 from Antarctica, with four being observed falls.
Pallasites were once thought to originate at the core- mantle boundary of differentiated asteroids that were subsequently shattered through impacts. An alterna- tive recent hypothesis is that they are impact- generated mixtures of core and mantle materials.
A common error is to associate their name with the asteroid 2 Pallas but their actual name is after the German naturalist Peter Pallas (1741–1811), who studied in 1772 a specimen found earlier near Krasno- yarsk in the mountains of Siberia that had a mass of 680 kilograms (1,500 lb). The Krasnoyarsk mass de- August 2017 West Seattle Petroglyphs Page 7
WSRC JULY FIELDTRIP—GARNETS
Pictures by Sue Fox
August 2017 West Seattle Petroglyphs Page 8 HAVING FUN: JUNIOR ACTIVITIES
by AFMS Juniors Program Chair, Jim Brace
Nothing in Life Is Free – Give to the AFMS Endowment Fund!
Back in 2003, I began conceptualizing and drafting the AFMS Future Rockhounds of America Badge Program with monthly articles within the pages of this very newsletter. The program was approved and offi- cially unveiled in 2004 with a manual and 9 badges. Since then, I’ve written and updated four editions of the manual, and we’re now up to 20 activity badges that kids can earn along with a Membership patch, a Rockhound badge for having earned 6 activity badges, and a Rock Star pin for exceptional children who earn all 20 activity badges. (To date, some 28 kids nationwide have earned that distinction.)
I frequently hear from folks not yet familiar with the program who call to ask about it and to inquire just how much each badge costs. The answer: Nothing! Zero! Nada! And when I say that, I frequently en- counter an amazed pause on the other end of the phone line. This is truly exceptional in this day-and-age of fees for everything, including five-dollar bottles of ordinary drinking water in a hotel room or the “luxury” of packing a suitcase with you on an airplane.
But, as they say, nothing in life is really free. So how is it that we’ve distributed 3,980 membership patches and 11,923 activity badges since the program began—all entirely free—to clubs and their kids?
Well, give thanks (better yet, give dollars!) to the AFMS Endowment Fund. This has all been possible thanks to the generosity of the AFMS and its Endowment Fund. Your tax-deductible donation will enable us to keep things like our Badge Program alive and well. So give, and give generously, to keep our hobby healthy for many years to come by encouraging our next generation with resources intended to stimulate learning while having fun!
(via AFMS Newsletter 6/17) August 2017 West Seattle Petroglyphs Page 9
es, and electronic equipment may be exposed. Older WORKING WITH FAULTY equipment may have exposed electrical parts. If you contact exposed live electrical parts, you will be ELECTRICAL EQUIPMENT shocked. You need to recognize that an exposed elec- trical component is a hazard. Replacement covers for CAN MAKE YOU BECOME holes and motors are available at your local hardware store and typically need only a screwdriver to make A REAL LIVE WIRE! them safe.
by Mark Nelson Extension Cords: Defective or inadequate insulation One of the great things about the lapidary hobby is is a hazard. Insulation prevents the electrical conduc- that most of the powered equipment that we use is tors from contacting each other or you. A split or cut simple, reliable and serviceable. Saws, polishers, extension cord that exposes the internal wires is a grinders and such are often passed down through vari- sign that there may be more severe damage that you ous users to clubs and from clubs to individuals. With cannot see. Replace damaged cords. Never attempt to just basic maintenance a piece of equipment that is 40 repair a damaged cord with tape. Never hang exten- years old can perform as well as it did when it was sion cords from nails or sharp objects. Do not run new! extension cords through doors or windows.
One of the hazards we face when we work with older Ground Fault Circuit Interruptors: Many industrial electrical equipment is in the electrical service. Exten- plants and construction sites are using 2-foot exten- sion cords and connections are not meant to last for- sion cords equipped with a 3-way plug fitting and a ever and must be inspected and serviced or replaced built in GFCI. These devices interrupts the electrical as needed. Here are some of the common conditions circuit to a load when a fault circuit of 6mA or more found on lapidary equipment that must be corrected: is detected. It has to be manually reset after a trip incident, an important feature that prevents equipment Grounding. Grounding is the process used to safely from restarting without correcting the problem. Cost: eliminate unwanted voltage by directing that voltage between $19 and $59. to a safe connection to the earth. Electrical equipment must be properly grounded. At one time buildings Of course, always disconnect the power to the cord or were constructed without integral grounding (that equipment before performing service or repairs. Be round hole in a plug outlet connected to a little green safe out there! grounding wire). When electrical devices, such as (via The Tumbler, 12/16; via Rock Chips, 5/15; via CFMS polishers, were manufactured with internal grounding Newsletter, 5/15) their power cords had two flat prongs and a round ground prong. When the new three-prong cords would not connect to the old two-prong outlets, users simply cut off the round ground prong. Now the equipment AUQA AURA QUARTZ could be used, but there was no longer protection (Picture on Cover) from electrocution! If your equipment has a cord with the grounding prong removed it must be fixed. Buy a Aqua Aura Quartz is natural quartz which has been grounded plug and replace the hazardous one. It is heat treated and bonded with vaporized gold. easy to do with a screwdriver, snips and a pocket knife. This produces a vibrant light blue color with irides- cent flashes. Frayed Connections. With time and use the point at which a power cord connects with a piece of electrical equipment can become frayed. This will eventually lead to either the equipment shorting out, a fire, injury or all of the above. When you find this condition you may be able to re-insert the cord into the device’s connection box and tighten the clamping screws. Oth- erwise, an electrical appliance shop can replace the cord at a small charge.
Exposed electrical openings, wires or terminals. Elec- trical hazards exist when wires or other electrical parts are exposed. Wires and parts can be exposed if a cov- er is removed from an electrical connection, outlet or breaker box. Electrical terminals in motors, applianc- August 2017 West Seattle Petroglyphs Page 10
2017 FIELD TRIPS
Aug 26-27 Northwest Opal Association Field Trip — Greenwater — Meet @ Enumcluw Ranger Station @ 9:00 am — Agate, Jasper, Opal & Wood — dig & lite hard rock tools — contact Tony Johnson (253) 863-9238
Sep 9-10 All Rockhounds Pow Wow Field Trip — Red Top-Teanaway — Meet @ Teanaway Middle Fork Camp 8:00 am — Geode, Agate, Jasper, Jade — dig & hard rock tools — contact Larry Vess [email protected] or (253)473-3908
Sep 16-17 Cascade Rock Club Field Trip — Little Naches — Meet @ Enumclaw Ranger Station at 9:00 am — Thundereggs and fossils — dig & light hard rock tools — contact Tony Johnson (253) 863-9238
————————————————————————————————————— See WSMC http://www.mineralcouncil.org/FieldTrips_2016.pdf for additional field trips and details
2017 SHOWS
Sep 9 9am-5pm Clallam County Gen and Mineral Association Annual Show Sep 10 10am-4pm Vern Burton Community Center, 308 East 4th Street, Port Angles, WA
Sep 9 10am-5pm Marcus Whitman Gen and Mineral Society Annual Show Sep 10 10am-5pm Walla Walla Co. Fairgrounds, Comm. Center Bldg., 363 Orchard St., Walla Walla, WA
Sep 16 10am-5pm Southern Washington Mineralogical Society Annual Show Sep 17 10am-4pm Castle Rock Fairgrounds, 120 Fair Lane, Castle Rock, WA,
Oct 7 10am-5pm Marysville Rock & Gem Club Annual Show Oct 8 10am-5pm Totem Middle School Gym, 7th St. & State Ave., Marysville, WA
————————————————————————————————————— See the Northwest Newsletter for additional show listings and times. Available online at: http://northwestfederation.org/newsletters.asp
How Can You Help
Your Federation: Save stamps and give to our club treasurer.
Your Hobby: Join ALAA. - Contact Lyle Vogelpohl
Other: Volunteer to teach beginners what you are good at.
To Learn More About ...
Cabbing … contact Lyle Vogelpohl … (206) 932-3292