el gambrisino 2009-06

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Gemcrafters and Explorers Club "EL Gambrisino" Volume 51, Issue 6 June 2009 - 1 -

ELGAMBRISINOGem Crafters & Explorer's Club Bulletin, Las Cruces, NM

Affiliated with the AFMS and a member of the RMFMS

June 2009 - Volume 51, Issue 6

Notes from the Previous Meeting:

President Dave Smith opened the meeting at 7 PM. As our speaker, Mike Graves, needed to leaveearly he went right to the introduction and the program for the evening.

There were two guests with us this month: Steve Davis and Bunny Jones. Guests from last month,William and Kathy Duermyer were with us as new members this month.

Dave thanked our refreshments host's Valerie Peebles and Julie and Brecken Uhl. They put on avaried and great spread which was enjoyed by all.

Secretary' Report: Susan Banning stated that new Membership cards not picked up tonight wouldbe placed behind the name tags.

Treasurer Report: Lee Attaway stated that we have $1,644 in the bank and $45 Petty cash for atotal of $1,689. We received a thank you card from Judi Keith. Our BRC annual membership is up thisJuly 30th. As you know the Blue Ribbon Coalition is an advocate for public land use. Eric Fuller made amotion that it be paid and Ed Leake seconded it. It was approved by voice vote with one exception. Shealso mentioned that there are several free subscriptions to the BRC magazine so if anyone is interestedplease give her a call. It is first come, first served on these. Dave thanked Lee for all her hard work andgreat job she has done and a hearty round of applause followed.

Programs: Eric reported on last month's field trip to the Iron Hill. It was a small group and theywent to the Iron Hill mine on the Corralitos Ranch. From there they went up to Magdalena Peak. Thegate is now unlocked and anyone can drive up to the top for the wonderful views. After partaking of thescenery there they went to an old World War II bombing range where there is a lot of metal scatteredaround. Not to worry, live ammo was not used for practice. This target is one of about twenty in DonaAna and Luna counties. Eric found three old coins from the 1940s.

Eric also informed us that they would leave for Mule Creek on Friday the 22nd at 7:30 am fromLove's Truck Stop on I-10. He asked that anyone planning on going to please call him with your cellnumber in case of any change in plans. Maps were included in the last news letter.

Reminders & General Info:Next meeting will be, as usual, the third Friday of the month, June 19th, Room 189 Breland Hall on

the NMSU campus at 6:30 for social and 7 PM for the meeting. Refreshments will be hosted by theFullers and the Halls. Remember - no regular meeting in July.

A great reminder from Lee: Expecting company from out of town? Why not take them to see the ZuhlCollection on the NMSU campus. They are open from 8-5, Monday thru Friday. It's a great collection ofpetrified wood, fossils and minerals that anyone should enjoy.

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Program Notes:

Our speaker for the evening was Mike Gravesof the UDSA, AHPIS (Animal & Plant HealthInspection Service), Wildlife Services. Theyhandle wildlife conflicts with humans,endangered species, disease monitoring, wolfrecovery program and agriculture problems.

Their focus is heading towards the endangeredspecies and disease monitoring.

Mike GravesThe Wildlife Service does everything from

mitigating bird strikes at airports to gettingskunks out from under trailer houses. One oftheir jobs was to protect the 9/11 site from the

thousands of sea gulls that converged. Theyhad crews of four that worked around the clockfor months as searchers were looking for bodyparts.

Some of the more common problem critters:Badgerswho chew water lines but on the goodside they do eat rats. They can be relocated.Beavers are an especially Big Problem in theMesilla Valley. They plug culverts and destroyirrigation ditches and cause much damage toagriculture. Unfortunately there is no place toput trapped animals so they are euthanized.Mt. Lionsthat come close to town and eat petsare becoming a problem. They can lose theirfear of man and thus become a major problem.Their number one predator is another lion. Amale will kill and eat another male. They willreturn to their home territory if relocated.Skunks are the most common problem as in800 to 900 calls a year. (One of Mike's leastfavorite calls). They can be rabies anddistemper carriers.

Raccoons are also rabies carriers, which ismore common in them than in skunks. They eatchickens and cats.Coyotes also cause a lot of calls. They areevolving into "Urban Pests". They can easily

jump a 5 foot fence and eat "Fluffy". A pair will

work together to get their prey. In our territorythey are only 20-25 pounds but when raisingpups they will attack large dogs. They are veryterritorial and very clever and they cause muchdamage to livestock. They do not relocate asthey will always return to their own territory. Tokeep them out of your property you will need achain link fence 5-6 feet tall.Rattlers also cause a lot of trouble. In the

summer heat they like cool places such as inflower beds, under decks, etc. Roadrunners willkill and eat small snakes.

Wildlife Services does a lot of work at airportsas bird strike issues are hazardous to air planesas can be the rabbits on the runways. Thenthere is the pigeon problem at the dairies.Pigeons will defecate in the feed and water andthus can cause a disease in cattle which willcause the dairy to be shut down and can costtens of thousands of dollars.

He told us a bit about the Dove problem. Theimported Eurasian Collared Dove is overtakingour native species, the Mourning and the WhiteWing Doves. The Wildlife Service has not been

able to stop this invader.The Service used several devices to trap or kill

problem animals. He showed us a device, theM44, which is used to poison coyotes. Some ofus when hiking have come across warning signstelling of them and to keep your dogs away. It'sa spring loaded device that has chemicals thatreact with salvia to form sodium cyanide inside.It kills in 5 to 7 seconds. He is very selective asto its placement, never using if there is a lot ofhuman activity or during bird hunting season.They also use two different types of traps and by

law the area is posted when used.It sure was an interesting talk and I still can't

get over the fact that there are so many beaverhere in the valley. An interesting side note isthat Mike is a 4H Leader in Hatch and has aboutforty kids in his group. Good going Mike.

Contact info for them is:Wildlife Services, 527-6980.

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Mineral Meeting Notes:

Wednesday's meeting was crowded asthere were twelve us gathered around thetable and microscopes, a good size crowd forthe lab. Several people brought specimens toshow us and a lot more to be checked out

under the microscope. Don and Alan werebusy helping out. Of course there is nothinglike a little Django Reinhardt playing in thebackground to mellow one out.

Some of us took Cookie (well known for her"Green Thumb") up on her offer to show usher gardens which are alive with flowers andcactus not to mention the neat things shedoes with rocks around the yard. I sure

enjoyed the tour; her garden has changes in itevery time I see it. There's a lot of workinvolved there.

There was a lot of discussion on variousmines and hot spots for minerals. Some ofthe younger members of the group get outexploring a lot and are full of information ondifferent sites. Blast, if only I were ten years

younger. Also a couple of those youngermembers were "gimping" as bad as I havebeen lately. Good luck you two, I hope you'reboth "repairable" and that you're back on thetrail in good health, minus the gimps, againsoon.

All in all it was a fun, informative meetingand would like to take this opportunity to thankDon for sharing his expertise with us.

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Mystery Location?

This months Mystery Location is one that isvery popular with historians and touristsalike. The mountain in the background is awell known feature, can anyone tell me its

name or where these features are located?It is on one of the many state scenic drives.

Send your answers to me [email protected]

And now for the answer to last month's MysteryLocation. It was correctly identified by a number of youas the old ranch house on the Corralitos Ranch on theway to the Iron Hill location. We've passed it manytimes on various club trips. Congratulation to: Don &Cookie Saathoff, Leroy Unglaub and Elaine Franz,

****************************************

All of us could take a lesson from the weather. It pays

no attention to criticism.

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Field Trip Reports:

Campout at Mule Creek, May 22-25, 2009Report by Kathy Fuller

It was a great campout for those of you whomissed it. We had a total of 19 people in attendance,

4 ATVs, 2 motorcycles and 5 dogs! The happy hourtarp was set up in case of rain, but was neverneeded. We did have a few rain sprinkles on thedrive up and a little rain during the night Sunday.

The collecting was good. Some nice specimens ofamethyst crystals were found by the Peebles andUhls. We managed to squeeze a few more beads outof the usual collecting area. Eric and Kathy found 10between them and Brecken even found one. Dorianwas also persistent and collected several as well asJannette Hale. Ed, Nellie and Ally worked hardbashing rocks as well. Mitch and Pat Mauer spentlots of time walking the known arrowhead sites.

Photo by Bill UhlBreckens dad, Bill, joined us and provided lots of

information about survival and even some privateATV lessons to the teenagers. He also gets creditfor taking photos of the most exciting event of thecampout (ok it was exciting to me!). One eveningduring happy hour, just after cooking some greatsausage over the fire.Doug Hall spotted a blackbear about 100 yards from the happy hour table. (Okso maybe women are not good at measurements!)

We think he/she was young, but appeared to benearly full grown. Brecken saved the day and scaredit away. He didnt want it to become a camp bear andsubject to trapping or worse. Before the bear ran off,Breckens dad managed to snap a couple of photoswith his digital camera.

Our campfires were outstanding. Thanks to Dougand Alice Hall for digging out the f ire pit and providingthe copper tubes filled with garden hose. The tubesproduce brilliant colors in the f lames. Everyone

collected firewood, but special thanks go to the Hallsand Julie Uhl and her two assistants, Angela andDonnie. Besides the bear, we saw lots of deer, ahawk in its nest high in a pine tree near camp, rabbitsand squirrels. We heard lots of turkeys, but none

were actually seen as far as I know. Fresh Elkdroppings were everywhere, but again no Elk weresighted.

Photo by Bill UhlEric collected some coins from the old hippie bus

and we brought back a very mutilated teddy bearfrom the bus for our camp mascot. We had so muchfood at happy hour that we decided to start divvyingup food assignments each night. There is no needfor everyone to provide food each night and we cut

down on waste.Thanks go out to Darwin Peebles and Bill Uhl whoworked at removing small tree stumps and bashingrocks from the road into the campsite. We also needto thank Ed and Nellie for once again providingAgavero at Happy Hour.

Photo by Cindy Fuller

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Articles of Interest:

How about those Limestones?By C.E. Johnson

Many rockhounds and prospectors are not aware of the significant role of these formations in thesearch for minerals. If you have read this far, I congratulate you. If you read the rest of this article, I

sincerely hope you profit by it in some way.

There are numerous ways limestone formations serve us, but for the moment, let's consider only therockhound point of view.

Sedimentary limestone formations of course give rockhounds the chert & flint varieties of Chalcedony,and sea life fossils and shells, and some contain gypsum, aragonite & pyrite, etc.,

Much of the worlds oil has been produced from natural reservoirs in porous limestone's and dolomites,and as sedimentary rocks, limestone's are a major source of lime used in the manufacture of cement andfertilizer, some are used a paper-filler, etc. Some are used as building stone and many other industrialpurposes.

In addition to the sedimentary values, the effects of dynamic metamorphism (changes due to naturalpressures in the earth), converts the limestone family rocks to marble & calc-schists, etc., which oftenconverts the original limestone's minerals to more desirable ones, and when these rocks are intrudedby bodies of magma they make excellent host rock formations for ore deposits, and rockhoundminerals. In the contact zones with the magma, they will convert to calc-silicate rock and skarn,which then often contain metallic ore deposits and other non-metallic minerals, including certain kinds ofgarnets, diopside, epidote, wollastonite, fluorite, calcite & dolomite, serpentine, tremolite/actinolite.

Any precious metals would be very sparse in this environment. Any metals would most likely be ores ofiron, copper, and tungsten. Graphite is frequent. Any two or more of these minerals may occur in anyone deposit. They are typically coarse-grained, with broad & distinct cleavage surfaces. These deposits

show gnarled pocket like outcrops.

The moral of this story of course is that regions with these limestones and intrusive rocks together,especially if the limestones are overlying or adjacent to, the intrusive rock formations, are happy huntingground for rockhounds & prospectors. This example is only one of many examples of the primary cluesthat rock formations give us in our search for minerals, but of course if you dont know where thosefavorable geology areas are, this information is only academic, right? Read on.

The most reliable and fairly easy way to find favorable places for many minerals is to obtain a geologicmap of your area or any other area you may be interested in exploring. Geologic maps show rockformations and many other very helpful bits of knowledge about the areas shown on the maps.

Those geologic maps are available at places such as the USGS offices (United States Geologic Survey)and their State affiliates, some office & stationary suppliers, some state geology departments, bureaus ofland management offices, etc. If they don't have them, they probably will direct you to the most likelysources that have them on hand. I recommend that those who are computer-wise log in on and follow the links to what you need. Its easy if you do it right. If thats not an option, you can call 1-888-ASK-USGS for information, or write to USGS Information Services, Box 25286, Denver, CO 80255.

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Upcoming Show Dates:

June 19-21 Carlsbad, NM: Annual show, road Runner Gem & Mineral Club, Living Desert Zoo &

State Park. Free Admission. Contact Cathy Hamilton (575) 885-8572.June 19-21 Santa Fe, NM: 5th Annual show, Palace of the Governors/New Mexico History

Museum, Palace of the Governors Courtyard. Contact Carlotta Boettcher (505) 476-5112.

July 3-5 Farmington, NM: San Juan County Gem & Mineral Society, Farmington Civic Center.Free admission. Contact Mickie Calvert, (505) 632-8286July 11-12 Roseville, MN: Har Mar Summer Show, Anoka County Gem & Mineral Club, Har Mar

Mall. Free Admission. Contact Martha Miss, (651) 459-0343

July 11-12 Culver City, CA: 48th Annual Fiesta of Gems, Culver City Rock & Mineral Club,

Veterans Memorial Auditorium; contact Robert Thirlaway, (310) 213-7677www.CulverCityRocks,org/fiesta

Jul 30-Aug 2 Billings, Montana: AFMS/NFMS Show & Convention, Billings Gem & Mineral Soc.;Holiday Inn Trade Center. Contact Doug True (406) 670-0506

www.amfed.org/nfms/nfmsshow

Aug. 6-9 Buena Vista, CO: Continental Tailgate at the Rodeo Grounds, outdoor show. Free

admission. (303)833-2939 or (720)938-4194. www.coloradorocks.orgAug. 14-16 Lake George, CO; Lake George Gem & Mineral Club, next to Post Office, free

admission. contact John Rakowski (719) 748-3861 www.LGGMClub.org

Aug. 29-Sept. 7 Apache Creek, NM: "Agate Rendezvous 2009", an Inter-federation Campout &

Field trip Event. Please RSVP by Aug. 24th. Contact Yonis Lone Eagle, RMFMSVicePres. at 505-860-2455 or [email protected]

Sep. 18-20 Denver, CO; "The Denver Coliseum Mineral, Fossil & Gem Show", Denver Coliseum,contact Lowell Carhart (719) 886-7046 http://eons-expos.com There are also numerous shows in

other locations - See www.rockngem.comfor info.

Nov. 13-15 New Mexico Mineral Symposium, NMT, Socorro, NM - For your planning, moreinformation to follow.

For further information or shows please go to www.rockngem.com

Thought for the Day:

How is it that one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box to start a campfire?

Some Interesting Web Sites for you to check out:

Members occasionally send me web sites to check out and pass on plus the ones that I run across.Please send me any of your favorites that you think our members might be interested in.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZm037jPNgc&NR=1 You Tube attack dog & wolf attack styleshttp://sar.lanl.gov/maps_by_name.html Topo Maps on line USGS

http://i.usatoday.net/tech/graphics/iss_timeline/flash.htm ISS Comes Together - really cool.

And finally an interesting piece of info for all the tourists who think they're putting a hand or foot in eachof four U.S. states at the Four Corners area. They are apparently missing the mark - by about 2.5 miles.Check this out: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30327372/from/ET/

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Gemcrafters & Explorers Club, P.O. Box 3091, Las Cruces, NM 88003Member of: American Federation of Mineralogical Societies: www.amfed.org

Rocky Mountain Federation of Mineralogical Societies: www.rmfms.org

Blue Ribbon Coalition: www.sharetrails.org

2009 OFFICERS:President Dave Smith 521-3103 [email protected] President Kathy Fuller 524-0204 [email protected] Lee Attaway 523-4017 [email protected] Susan Banning 532-9612 [email protected] Pat Mauer 526-4939 [email protected] Don Saathoff 382-3464 [email protected] - Eric Fuller 524-0204 [email protected] - Maxine Wyman 649-4900 [email protected]

We meet on the third Friday of the month at Breland Hall, Room 189, NMSU campus at 6:30pm for social and 7 pm for the meeting. There is no meeting in July. Dues are $10 per personper year and each additional family member is $2 per year. They are due Jan. 1st of each year.

A membership form will be emailed to you to fill out and to be returned with your check BYMAIL to the treasurer.

Info for the Newsletter:

If you have information, articles, pictures or a website related to gem crafting, rock collecting or exploringand would like to share please give a call or email me at [email protected]. If you have a good idea orstory to tell I will be more than happy to help you write it up. Also if you have minerals, outdoor or campingequipment, etc. that you would like to sell or trade please let me know for the free "Classifieds."

el gambrisino 2009-06

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