2013 Gem and Mineral Show Vendors

We are very pleased to announce that our vendor list is full for the upcoming Labor Day weekend show.  We have several new vendors this year, so we're looking forward to making some new friends and seeing some new material!

Mark Your Calendars!

Grant County Rolling Stones
 30th Annual Gem and Mineral Show

3031 US Hwy 180 East, Silver City, NM

2013 Labor Day Weekend – Free Admission - No Early or Late Admissions

Saturday August 31 – 9:00 am to 5:00 pm
Sunday September 1 – 10 am to 5 pm
Monday, Labor Day September 2 – 10 am to 4 pm

Daily Field Trips – for Collecting – for Local Geology and Mining History

Josh’s Birthday Rockhounding Campout (with Kyle and Greg and Lola) by Kyle Meredith

Our first leg of the trip took us to T or C to find banded rhyolite (candy rock) on TV Tower Hill.  To get there we had to drive through a culvert under I-25.  Greg went first and scraped his camper a little, but Josh and I made it without touching.  We found some good rhyolite, but not as good as at the Green Spar Mine on Fluorite Ridge or down by Gage.  

Then we headed back through town on NM Hwy 51, past Elephant Butte Dam (which we’d never seen before—what lake?), but before we got to Engle we turned south toward some arbitrary GPS coordinates I had interpreted from a vague map in New Mexico Rockhounding.  Amazingly, Josh found most of a petrified tree lying in an outcrop where there was very little other petrified wood to be found.  Someone had taken away the easiest sections nearest the top of the tree, but with perseverance we excavated the next section down and carried it what I estimate to be a quarter mile (or more) back to the camper.  The best we could do was 50-100 feet, then drop it and go back for the rest of our stuff.  I still wonder if my hernia operation is intact.

We had one more questionable location to check for agate and wood, but with that earlier score—and being near happy hour—we decided to drive past it, on to the carnelian site.  We camped on top of the ridge, had our gin and tonics, and began finding carnelian almost as soon as we looked down on the ground.  We also saw mysterious piles of rock.  The first one we saw looked like an old, abandoned fire ring, but then we saw more than we could count all over the landscape.  We considered several hypotheses as to what they might be, including shallow graves at a battlefield or agave roasting pits. 

That afternoon and the next morning we searched far and wide for carnelian with fair success, then headed back toward the main road where, unbeknownst to us until we saw it from our campsite, lay the Spaceport.  (We continued to find carnelian at every stop along the way—generally no bigger than the end of your thumb.)  We were only allowed to take pictures of the Spaceport from the parking lot, then drove on down the road toward Hatch to look for a place to stop for lunch.  When we had asked the sentry at the gate if there was a café in Upham (it IS on the map) he looked like we had just arrived  from outer space.  Down the dusty road we were surprised to see a parking area with a kiosk and signage for El Camino Real so we pulled over there, fixed a quick lunch, then walked the 3-mile round trip to the escarpment where we expected to see piles of broken wagons and bleached bones.  The only evidence of the trail was swales, but the interpretive signs helped us imagine traveling along the Jornada del Muerto.  The weather we experienced must have been about the very best they could have hoped for.

The next goal of our trip was to find a place to camp near the saddle above the Palm Park (barite) Mine on the other side of the mountains (northeast of Hatch).  With maps and GPS we managed to get into a high arroyo sheltered from the wind that had begun to blow through the wide valley.  It was as close as I had hoped to be (about a mile from the summit) and as far as we wanted to drive.  Again we found some banded rhyolite worth collecting, but nothing you’d drive all the way there to find.  The next morning we hiked up the road to the saddle and looked for the little quartz scepters we had found before, walking up from the Palm Park Mine.  We got back to the trucks before lunchtime and relaxed with a beer before heading back down into the valley and the road that took us to the Tonuco exit just south of Rincon.  After having fish tacos at Fidencio’s in Hatch, we headed home.  Couldn’t have asked for a better time in Southwest New Mexico.

References:  Gem Trails of New Mexico, James R. Mitchell.  New Mexico Rockhounding, Stephen M. Voynick

Camper in Culvert

Petrified Wood

Rock pile on Carnelian Ridge

Spaceport

Camino Kiosk

Road up from the Palm Park Mine

Arroyo campsite

Club Field trip to Stein Ghost Town

On February 16, these photographs were taken on the Club field trip to Stein's Ghost town that is located just west of Lordsburg.  It looks like a terrific day enjoyed by the 20 participants, a first stop on a field trip that also included the San Simon Mine.   Thanks to Club Historian Jeannine Weiner for providing these! 

Great collecting advice

Hints For Surface Collecting

When searching for translucent material, like agate, walk towards the sun; you will see the sun shine through the stone.

When looking for reflective material like crystals, have the sun behind you and the material will shine or sparkle in the sun.

If you walk sideways to the sun, look side to side for both translucent and reflective material.

If you find something good or unusual, stop and mark the spot, look up the slope and down the slope to find the source of the material. Some collectors like to pile rocks every time they find something unusual, that way they can see the fall-line of the material.

Source: Rockhound Ramblings 2/13, via The Tumbler 5/11.

Come visit the club!

Another great reader wrote wondering about visiting one of our meetings.  Here's the the response. 

Hello Reader, 

Thank you for asking about the Grant County Rolling Stones Gem and Mineral Society.  In answer to your first question, we encourage and welcome guests (and potential new members) to come to our meetings! You may join us at 6:00 for our potluck—just bring plates, silverware, etc., and a covered dish to share—or come around 6:45 for our usually brief meeting, then the rock draw, and lastly the program.  Our March program will be Digital Microscopy, or looking at rocks REALLY close up on the computer.

Non-members are also welcome to come on field trips as guests of members. To get an idea of what places we go and what we look for, I’d recommend going to our blog http://rollingstonesgms.blogspot.com/ and scrolling down the right column to the newsletters.  They will provide you more information about our society than I could supply in a simple email.

Don’t be shy.  Just show up, then at the beginning of the meeting we introduce guests and new members.  Don’t hesitate to ask questions, and if you decide to join, our Treasurer Marcia Fisch will be happy to sign you up.

We hope to see you there!

Kyle Meredith

Past President, GCRSG&MS

Zuhl hosts special event

Zuhl Collection Newsletter

An email recently received may be of interest. 

Happy New Year to All!

Lots of changes are planned for 2013 at the Zuhl Museum and behind the scenes with the collection. We hope all of you will be a part of supporting the Zuhl Collection as it takes these next steps in its evolution!

Please enjoy this month's newsletter featuring the Zuhls, the interesting science behind petrified wood, profiles on some of our very unique specimens and more!!

If you know someone who would like to receive the newsletter please have them email me at zuhl@nmsu.edu.

All newsletters can also be downloaded from our websitewww.nmsu.edu/zuhl/newsletter

Sincerest best wishes,

Tiffany Santos  

Zuhl Museum:Home of the Zuhl Collection

"Where Rocks Come Alive"

Tiffany Santos

Director of Zuhl Collection

Dept. Geological Sciences/ MSC 3AB

New Mexico State University

P.O. Box 30001

Las Cruces, NM 88003

office: 575-646-4714

fax: 575-646-1056

zuhl@nmsu.edu

www.nmsu.edu/zuhl