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November 21, 2008 Note venues and dates with care. The Explorers Club Tiburon, CA! Our next event is at 6:30 on Nov. 21, a Friday evening, Northern California Chapter at the Dana home. November 2008 NGS In color at our web site: http://www.diggles.com/ec/ Tiburon—November 21, 2008 Leela Hutchison The Cave of Crystals An Early Exploration of Gigantic ‘Gems’ In 1794, among trees and a spring, in the into a consultant to the owners of the mine low hills southwest of Chihuahua, Mexico, in the year 2000, when staying just across early prospectors found a vein of silver the Arizona border at Aqua Prieta—their ore exposed. They named the locale Naica mutual interest: visiting and helping the An enormous geode filled with huge selenite (a Tarahumara word for ‘shady place.’) It Tarahumaras of the Sierra Madre Occiden- crystals was discovered in 2000; our speaker was there in 2001. By 2008, suitably suited was one-hundred years later that a claim tal. He showed her some pictures of a new explorers continued observations. R F was made for a mine, and Naica became a chamber that had just been discovered, R F ISHER pueblo, a small town. Throughout the 20th more than twice as far below the surface! ISHER century and still, the mine has prospered Subsequently named the Cave of the Crys- as a world-leading lead, zinc, silver and tals, it is a phenomenal world-class won- gold resource. Extensive workings exist, derland of even larger crystals. interrupted only during the Mexican revo- Their meeting led to a discussion of how lution of the 1920s and ‘30s. to resolve photographing these giants—the In 1910, very large crystals were dis- heat is intense; the air 100% humid; cam- covered at a below-surface depth of about eras fogged and failed. Her new friend 400 feet. The chamber became famous needed someone willing to assist in as a source for large museum-grade sel- his attempts to solve the picture-taking enite crystals—clear beautiful structures, endeavor; Leela’s rock-climbing skills and a variety of the easily-scratched mineral fearlessness prompted an invitation to be gypsum. The Cave of Swords became well his assistant. This month the National Geographic known to mineral collectors. She will tell us of the results, with some Society broadcast a TV show featuring the Our speaker, Leela Hutchison, is a splendid photographs! Her visit in 2001, Cave of the Crystals and their November gemologist, a graduate of the Gemologi- was early in the new discovery—look at issue contains NGS-quality pictures and cal Institute of America. While selenite is her in shorts, then, and visitors today in graphics. (There is also a feature article on not hardy enough to be a gem, the crystal air-conditioned suits! She probably will not the Tarahumara, a subject we featured at form is suitably a collectable. A native of go back; it IS dangerous! She is turning our September 2007 meeting.) Come see El Paso, she became aware of the Naica current exploration time to some opportu- and hear about one of the early explorations crystals, and had the good fortune to run nities in southern New Mexico. to the cave—a 21st Century discovery. NGS ENTA V A L Read NOTE Below Don and Jeanne Dana have invited us to be guests at their Tiburon home for our November 21st meeting. A generous offer for their fellow explorers. You will be delighted with the conviviality which will precede the talk! Be sure to reserve early so plans can be made. page© 2008 1 The Explorers Club M ORT B Slow, Low-Flying Race Around EEBE the World San Francisco While preparing the November newsletter an unusual motor sound persisted from the sky over San Francisco—a glance revealed the arrival of the Airship Ventures new zeppelin! This is the first rigid lighter-than-air craft to fly in the USA since its predecessor, the Hindenburg, crashed in 1937. Begin- ning the last week in October, this smaller 747-sized ver- sion—now safely held aloft by non-combustible helium—will lift tourists around the San Francisco Bay Area. For a fee. See www.airshipventures.com for all of the details. (There is a contest to name the ship, which is based at Moffett Field.) A week before the zeppelin’s arrival in San Francisco, at our October meeting, we were visited by Don Hartsell (MN04) who spends all of his waking hours thinking about Vice Chair Alan Nichols welcomed our speaker Don Hartsell at the Golden Gate lighter-that-air ships of all sizes. He spoke to us about plans Yacht Club and presented him with a certificate acknowledging his talk. for the 2010 Airship Race around the world. As Commis- sioner and Managing Director of the World Air League, Don iconic sites on the World Heritage list. Don is responsible for all organizing details of this first-of-it’s- predicts the winner will be the team with kind challenge. the best navigator. The air race is conceived to be in sixteen stages circum- The airship race was conceived by Don navigation the globe; the winner will be that craft that has as he completed a major project digitizing the best (shortest) time accumulated as the sum of participat- materials for the University of Texas. He ing in each of these legs. Each segment will be a local and wanted to find a life-changing challenge, worldwide event, broadcast widely and combined with a fair and he has. He is traveling the world gain- and festivities surrounding the arrival of the floating behe- ing support and has accomplished this to moths. Don poses that it will be the most watched event in achieve a critical mass— the race will go history, given TV exposure and those observing the flyovers. on, he is assured. And, he was convincing The competing sky ships (more than a half-dozen are signed to the chapter attendees. If you would like up already) will travel from the Greenwich Prime Merid- to get involved contact Don at his web- ian across Europe, southward to Africa and the Middle East, site: www.worldskyrace.com. A number across the Indian Ocean to Equatorial Asia and through the of members of The Explorers Club are Orient, island hop across the Pacific to San Francisco, south already so. Airship Ventures zeppelin as captured by the SF Chronicle to Central America, then north to the Maine coast, crossing Can we look forward to the newly- upon arrival in the Bay Area the Atlantic back to Greenwich for an exciting finish to an named airship based in the Bay Area as October 26 and, as pro- historic race. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and a competitor? It has passed the two-year jected, from the AV website Cultural Organization (UNESCO) is cooperating as a partner certification and is among the fifty or so (below) in the promotion and siting of the race, which will visit many candidates now flying. (LL) SPECIAL NOTICE: Many organizations have converted to email as the sole means of providing newsletters; we have resisted, but we would like to send as many as possible to be green and fiscally responsible. PLEASE notify us at [email protected] if you will accept email-only communication. We encourage you to do so; act now. page 2 E RDEN E A Special Event — Short Notice! RUC Come Meet and Hear From Erden Eruç (MN04) Rower Extraordinare — November 6th http://www.cyc.org/speakers/erdeneruc.html Hello friends. Above is the link to the information page that Corinthian Yacht Club has pro- vided about my November 6th presentation. The presentation will take place in Tiburon at the club house. There will be dinner beginning at 6pm and I will begin my presentation at 7pm about my row across the Pacific Ocean from California shores to the Papua New Guinea waters. This singlehanded crossing by oars was especially mean- ingful for me since we raised about $47,000 for charity during that crossing to benefit the rural primary school children in regional boarding schools in Turkey. If you can join us, I will be thrilled to get a chance to see you again, and some of you I will meet in person for the first time. If you have friends in the Bay Area who are rowers, kayakers, sailors, climbers, bicyclists, philanthropists or just interested in a good story, please feel free to inform them of the RSVP page above. With my warmest regards. Erden Eruç, at sea, and his 312-day route to New Erden Eruç (MN04) Guinea! May 2007 in San Francisco Bay (below) President, Around-n-Over D ON B EKINS The Chapter Chair We are hosted for our November meeting by Don (MN06) and Jeanne Dana at their home in Tiburon. This offer was made last Spring and gratefully accepted. Don, you remember, was our speaker in May 2007 at a meeting in Portola Valley—his sub- ject: rowing from Asia to North America if you were early man—a demonstration of other-than-the-need-for-a-land-bridge. Their generosity is another demonstration of the kindness of our membership. We have been hosted by several members over the recent past. (A benefit, I might add, as it allows attendees to stretch their budgets to include those meetings that are not hosted!) Our meeting on Friday the 21st is very timely. We were not aware of the coin- cident articles published by the National Geographic Society adding details about the crystal cave.
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