January 2019
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January 2019 Museum Telephone 623-428-6442 Email: [email protected] President: Dave Alvord 207-756-1784 1st VP Cheryl Alvord 207-797-0619 Secretary: Mary Brown-Martilik 972-4854 Treasurer: Laurie Helmer 623-933-0146 Field trips Bill & Vicky 623-399-8217 Kronenberg Membership: Eileen Moberg 623-972-1304 Monitors: Bill Allison 623-337-2656 Refreshments: Beth Mead 307-262-6715 Rockdust: Peter Jennings 206-802-8622 2018 Christmas Party Schedule of Events Jan 9 2 pm January Board Meeting at Mineral Museum Jan 10 6 pm Fairway rooms 1&2 Jan 17 Field trip to North Phoenix - details in article page 5 Jan 19 Trip to Quartzite for rock shopping - details on page 8 Feb 7 10:00 am February Board Meeting at Mineral Museum Contact club officers at [email protected] for specific details of near-term events. Mineral Museum Hours: Mon. Tues. Wed. Fri. Sat 10:00am-1:00pm MUSEUM MONITORS STILL NEEDED to fill very few slots in January. Contact museum or Bill Allison to volunteer. Membership Eileen Moberg New badges are in the museum office above the computer. Come claim your badge or find it at the members' meeting. Don't forget to renew by the end of the January meeting on the 10th to stay on our member roster. If you cannot renew by that date, please email me at [email protected] and make other arrangements. 1 Welcome to new members: Tom Caviness, Richard Atwood, Michael Hale, Sandi Larson, Betty Timmons, and Heather West. Rock on, new members! Please renew your membership ($10 per person) no later than the January 10th meeting. You can print the form (page 8) and attach it to your payment to speed the payment process when signing in at our club meeting From the Editor The time has come to pass on the task of Rockdust editor to a new person. After 5 years of producing the Rockdust I must thank all who have contributed articles, photographs, trip reports and other material that has enabled me to cut, prune and otherwise modify to create the monthly issue. Without your support over the past years the Rockdust would not have been so successful. Presidents Letter December was a joyous time for our club! We had an awesome Holiday Party, (82 attendees) with lots of food, laughs, and some crazy games. Everyone had a chance to “Spin the wheel” and win, and most folks also discovered a table rock and Santa cookie. From all the smiles, it sure seemed like everyone had fun. Then a week later we went on a 40-minute ride to a chrysocolla mine area. The slope was steep and loose, and the adventurous marched up and around the mountain, while some of us who did not desire this kind of adventure, found lots of neat things in the debris piles and even across the road (basalt bombs, Crinoids fossils, and some really nice dendrites) We go to more local sites in December. Today we give a very special Shout of Thanks to Peter Jennings who has edited, composed, compiled and emailed the Rockdust for 5 years. Peter will be finishing up with this issue but will be available to guide our next editor. Peter’s 5-year commitment is greatly appreciated. Thanks again. (PS. We heard from the RCSC that the Rockdust is one of the best newsletters in Sun City….so, we are looking for another person who has computer skills to keep this tradition going... Speak, call or contact any of the officers) Mystery Rock from December meeting. This was a seriously mixed up rock and so we have some great answers…or guesses 2 Chrysocolla, Wulfenite, Memonite quartz, crystal iron, turquoise Ditto, plus turquoise Copper Copper ore, little Malachite, Chrysocolla Malachite, Azurite, Quartz, Biotite, sphalerite Quartz, chert, feldspar, dolomite flint, wulfenite, azurite Trip Report for December Field Trip to North Phoenix Abandoned Copper Mines by Bill Kronenberg Thirty-two Rockhounds gathered at Bell Center for the hunt. After a stop at Circle K Burger King we continued by 7th Street to the site. We found places to park and spread out over the hillside. Chuck Webb started excavating boulders and rolling them up a ramp into the back of his pickup. He makes rock sculptures and waterfalls in his backyard. Lynne Vioana Webb took many photos of everyone. Roddy Mac found some slabs covered with dendrites, even on the sides. We gathered around for lunch and shared our finds: Bill Kronenberg, Dave Donald, Pat Amado, Rochelle Summers, and her guest Carla Bochnak, Kevin Cole, Carol Goodman, David Peterson, Lea Gallagher, John Dal Pan, Bill Todd, Raymond Finley, Vicki Beers, Dave Noll, Tom Fish, Joe and Eliz Chan, Mike Yasso, Bob Ottley, Dave Balzer, Catherine Kelley, David Alford, Liz Agnew, Bill Allison, Eileen Mosberg, Nancy Mac, Larry Eller, Jane Ewer, and Deb Kloehn. After lunch a few of us dug out some rock with a large green stripe of possibly jasper running through it. We gathered up our tools and left for home. Other comment received about the trip * I thought the field trip was great. I have nothing to add. * Great field trip. Merry Christmas to you * It was wonderful! I had so much fun. Thank you for your safety tips on going down the slope and for your knowledge on the dendrite rock I found. I got a bunch of great rocks for the yard. It was nice how every driver in the convoy was given detailed directions. It was my first field trip with the group and I am very much looking forward to the next. Thank you so much. 3 * We had a good time and all the feedback I got was positive. Merry Christmas Gerald Jensen Receives the Legacy Award Submitted by Mary Brown-Martilik Born on a farm near Kirkman, Iowa, Gerald Jensen did not have a fondness for rocks as a child. Rocks meant back-breaking work. As an adult, teaching at a community college near Sioux City, he ordered a load of landscaping material. Upon arriving home Gerald found his wife, Bonnie, sitting amidst the pile of rocks marveling at many of them, entranced by their qualities. Gerald’s interest was sparked, too, as he looked through them and thought of the geology class he had taken in college. Thus, the beginning of Gerald being a Rockhound. Over the years, the couple visited Bonnie’s sister four or five times in Sun City, Arizona. The couple knew they wanted to retire to Sun City. This goal was accomplished in 1992 and the Sun City Rockhound Club was the first club they joined. Many happy hours were spent doing Gerald’s favorite parts of the club: going on field trips, participating in Show and Tell activities, and working in the Museum. Gerald showed leadership in the Rockhound Club as President for three years in a row and was president an additional year when no other member stepped up. Years ago, Gerald took a golf lesson and as luck would have it, the teacher also taught oil painting. Gerald traded his clubs for brushes and eventually was a member of all four art clubs that were then active in Sun City. He took a break from painting to care for his wife for four years. Although not painting currently he hopes to get back to it. Gerald actively volunteers at the Mineral Museum and has toured hundreds of people through the Florescent Room. A couple of years ago our club benefited when he donated 25 boxes of slabs to the spring rock sale. Members bought many of them that day as they were terrific. Gerald Jensen received thanks from the club by being named as a Legacy Award winner during the 2018 Christmas party. Be sure to introduce yourself to him if you do not already know him. We would not have the club and museum if not for the work of members who came before us; especially those whose names are on the Legacy Award Plaque displayed in the Sun City Rockhound Mineral Museum. 4 Meeting Speakers Our speaker at the January meeting will be Deputy Ed Philpott from the Maricopa Search and Rescue Unit This will give us some understanding on how we can safely conduct ourselves on field trips and what to do in the case of an emergency. In February our speaker will be John Gherke who will speak on the Mohs scale of mineral hardness. January 17 Field Trip by Vicky Kronenberg On our January trip we will travel to an area, out past the mushroom rhyolite area, to old copper mines. These mines penetrated an amethyst bearing stratum as they dug the mine shafts. There is lots of amethyst float around. Many of these pieces look like plain quartz because the sun has caused fading. However if you chip a piece off you can see the amethyst. If you want to dig, and use chisel and gads, you can dig rock that has not been in the sun to fade. We will leave Bell Recreation Center Southeast corner behind the farmers market at 8:30 so be there at 8:00am to sign up. This trip will be a full day so if you have to be home early…bring your own vehicle. We don’t want you to bring your vehicle if you can’t have Discount Tires check the air in all the tires including the spare. I think many people will come on this outing so let’s do things right so we don’t have to run back to Wickenburg for another tire.