CMLC Newsletter Feb 2020
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1 FEBRUARY 2020 EDITION No Stone Unturned silver platinum WHAT DO ALL OF THESE gold Native iron WELL KNOWN METALS They are all “native palladium metals” that is metal ele- HAVE IN ments that have not bonded with other elements. COMMON? In the next two editions of “No Stone Unturned”, each of these, along with other native elements will be examined. 2 WE WISH TO THANK THE FEDERAL MEMBER CONTACT INFORMATION: FOR LEICHHARDT, HON. WARREN ENTSCH, Phone: 0450 185 250 FOR FACILITATING THE PRINTING OF THIS Email: [email protected] MAGAZINE. Postal Address: PO Box 389, Westcourt. 4870. NQ 129 Mulgrave Road (in the Youth Centre Grounds) CLUB HOURS: MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE MEMBERS: Monday 4:00pm to 9:30 pm President: Michael Hardcastle Vice-president: Mike Rashleigh Wednesday *8:30am to 12:30 Secretary: Jan Hannam *1:00pm to 4:00pm Treasurer: Joe Venables Saturday *9:00am to 1:00 Assistant Secretary: Allan Rose Assistant Treasurer: Richie Williams *12:00pm to 4:00pm Extra Members MC: Tammi Saal Workroom fees are $4 per session or part OTHER PERSONNEL: thereof and must be paid before session begins. Purchasing Officer: Jan Saal Specimen Curator: David Croft The Club provides tuition in cabbing, faceting, Specimen Testers: David Croft, Vic Lahtinen, silver-smithing and lost wax casting Trevor Hannam GENERAL MEETINGS: Cabochon Advisors: Jodi Sawyer Faceting Instructors: Jim Lidstone, Joe Ferk, General meetings are held on the 1st Saturday of Trevor Hannam each month. When this is a public holiday, the Silver Instructors: Sylvia Rose, Jan Saal meeting is deferred until the following Saturday. Machinery Curators: volunteers needed Note: Your Attendance at General Meetings Gem Testing: Vic Lahtinen, Trevor Hannam ensures that your voice will be heard when it comes Librarian: David Croft to making decisions concerning the running of the Facebook Admin: Tammi Saal, Peggy Walker club. Webpage Admin: Richie Williams, John Heenan QLACCA Delegate: Bill Reece CLUB PURCHASING POLICY: Youth Centre Rep: Bill Reece If you wish to purchase something on behalf of the Field Trip Advisors: Allan Gale, Craig Walker, club, please notify the purchasing officer, Jan Saal John Heenan, Leigh Twine Gem Festival: Trevor Hannam, Michael PLEASE CONSIDER CONTRIBUTING MATERIAL Hardcastle, Allan Gale, for “No Stone Unturned”. Tammi Saal, Mike Rashleigh Auditor: Carey Accountancy Magazine Editor and Publisher: Jeanne Mora Safety Officers positions vacant The Editor reserves the right to choose and edit all material featured in this magazine. Club Banking details for anyone wishing to pay Although all care is taken to ensure the accuracy of membership fees electronically: the material herein, the Editor does not ac- Bendigo bank Acc: 165026436 BSB: 633 000 cept responsibility for any inaccuracies Gem Festival and Membership which may inadvertently occur. 3 AROUND THE CLUB As usual, we wish all those celebrating a birthday this month a wonderful day and year A “Get Well Soon” wish to those of you who are not enjoying good health at the moment. It’s not pleasant coping with the extreme temperatures and humidity at the moment. Your January copy of “No Stone Unturned” had some interesting omissions for which we apologize. It was a “margin” error. You can get an accurate black & white copy on application You know it's a rough neighbourhood when to Jeanne. even the birds have ankle monitors and pack a knife. Copies of the magazine are always available at the club or on the club website. SHARING THE SUCCESS Could those of you who try the different silver work pattern published monthly, please send us a photo to show how you got on. I’m sure other people would be interested in your efforts. CROSS WORD ANSWERS How many of you were able to solve Mike’s cross-word puzzle last month. The answers are below. 4 NOTES FROM THE MEETING 2020 CLUB’S 60th BIRTHDAY: ELECTROFORMING: Trevor displayed a few interesting items he has been experimenting with. Another class will be scheduled later in the year . FUTURE CASTING SESSION BY TREVOR: A date still to be decided on SYLVIA’S 1 DAY COURSE: (Bracelet) Please let us know if you are interested so a date can be finalised. Sylvia is going away in a few weeks and if there are enough people interested she will run this This BIG event will be celebrated during the Annual before leaving. Numbers are limited to six Gem Festival. A commemorative booklet is planned participants .Cost will depend on the cost of the silver. and members are invited to get involved with histor- Applicants will need to have some knowledge of ical events, tall tales of club outings, any humour- working with silver. ous or hair-raising events that took place on field trips (close encounters with our wild life) or on the SUNDAY SLOG : way to and from field trips, your experiences as a Sunday Slog will begin again on every 2nd Sunday budding lapidary, unusual mineral finds you’ve each month from 9am - 1pm. This will be a work only made over the years etc. (the sort of thing that gets session with no purchases available and no instructors people buzzing around the table at morning tea and available. The first SS will be on Sunday 9th February. lunch times.) Photos can be submitted too. EASTER FOSSICKING TRIP: Either tell Jeanne or write them up for her. Anything As Field Trip Officer Alan Gale will be away Craig that will make good reading IS VERY WELCOME! Walker, Leigh Twine & Bob Lees have kindly offered to organise the Easter outing. Notification via email this publication, our Facebook page and the club notice boards will be posted as soon as a location is decided SLABS FOR SALE: Bill Reece advised he has slabs at home for sale. If you are interested, contact Bill for more information. RENEWAL OF MEMBERSHIP: Members are reminded that membership renewals are now due. Keep in mind that the membership fee includes insurance and that non-financial members will not be permitted to work in the workrooms. 5 NATIVE ELEMENTS Of the 92 chemical elements found in nature only 19 are known to occur as minerals. These native elements are commonly divided into three groups— 1. metals (platinum, iridium, osmium, iron, zinc, tin, gold, silver, copper, mercury, lead, chromium); 2. semimetals (bismuth, antimony, arsenic, tellurium, selenium); and 3. nonmetals (sulfur, carbon). It is virtually impossible to make generalizations as to the occurrence of the native elements. They form under greatly contrasting physicochemical conditions and in all types of rocks. Even a single native element can occur in widely diverse environments. Native iron (kamacite), for example, is found primarily in meteorites. The iron meteorites called hexahe- drites are almost completely composed of kamacite, and in those called octahedrites it is the princi- pal constituent. Although terrestrial native iron is a great rarity, it has been found in igneous rocks (basalts), in carbonaceous sedimentary rocks, and in petrified wood. A Closer Look at the Metal Native Elements 1. Platinum Although platinum has been in use for thousands of years, it was not recognised as a distinct metal until the 1700s. Discovered by the Spanish in Columbia at the gold mines of Rio Pinto, as early as the 1500s, it was named platina del Pinto meaing “little silver”. They thought it was an impure ore of silver. Platinum is found as flakes or grains and rarely nuggets. Native platinum almost always contains some iron and other metals such as iridium, rhodium and palladium, in mafic* or igneous rocks and in quartz veins associated with hematite, chlorite and pyrolucite. Important sources are Bushveld and Transvaal in South Africa, the Stillwater complex in Montana, Goodnews Bay in Alaska. Ontario in Canada and Norlisk in Russia. With a high melting point, it was not until the 1920s that technology was sufficiently advanced enough to easily work the metal. Although used in jewellery, it is mainly used in industry as aircraft sparkplugs, molecular converters and even for razor blades. It has re- cently been incorporated in chemotherapy drugs. Mafic is an adjective describing a silicate mineral or igneous rock that is rich in magnesium and iron, and is thus a portmanteau of magnesium and ferric. Most mafic minerals are dark in color, and common rock-forming mafic minerals include olivine, pyroxene, amphibole, and biotite. 6 2. Iridium is a native chemical element with the symbol Ir and atomic number 77. A very hard, brittle, silvery- white transition metal of the platinum group, iridium is considered to be the second-densest metal with a density of 22.56 g/cm3 A cubic centimetre of iridium weighs 22.65 times as much as a cubic centimetre of water. It is the most corrosion-resistant metal, even at temperatures as high as 2000 °C. Although only certain molten salts and halogens are corrosive to solid iridium, finely divided iridium dust is much more reactive and can be flammable. Iridium was discovered in 1803 among insoluble impurities in natural platinum. Smithson Tennant, the primary discoverer, named iridium for the Greek goddess Iris, personification of the rainbow, because of the striking and diverse colours of its salts. Iridium is one of the rarest elements in Earth's crust, with annual production and consumption of only three tonnes. The most important iridium compounds in use are the salts and acids it forms with chlorine, though iridium also forms a number of organometallic compounds used in industrial catalysis, and in research. Iridium metal is employed when high corrosion resistance at high temperatures is needed, as in high-performance spark plugs, crucibles for recrystallization of semiconductors at high temperatures, and electrodes for the produc- tion of chlorine in the chloralkali* process.