Lone Pine Gem and Mineral Society Newsletter

December 2007

Linda Baptie holding her prize ammonite found at New York Canyon

Christmas party!!!

Our next club meeting is December 9th, which is also our annual Christmas Party. There will be a brief but necessary meeting preceding the festivities. The location will be at the home of Pat and Ray Ramirez, 2372 Apache Drive in Bishop from 2:00 to 5:00 PM. Please RSVP by Friday Dec. 7th so we can ensure enough seating by calling (760) 872-0624.

We will also be doing our gift exchange, so please bring a gift for you and your guests to exchange preferably rockhounding related with a value of approximately 20 dollars or less. This is not your ordinary gift exchange and fun will be had by all. Everyone please bring your favorite side dish and something to drink for you and your guests. Jackie has kindly offered to make a ham. The club will be providing plates, cups, utensils and napkins.

Directions: Heading North on Hwy 395 turn right at the Barlow signal light (just before the Casino). Continue straight ahead through 2 stop signs then turn right just past the Park onto Apache Drive. The Ramirez home is about 2/3rds of the way down the street on the right side. See you all there!

Turquoise Mine field trip - October 27

Editor's note: This trip report comes to us from Francis and Francee Pedneau.

As we did the previous week, we met at the rest area west of Tonopah. When all were present, Jeff and Dave Lines, Toni Callaway, Sandra Brennan, Francis and Francee Pedneau and Jeryl Russell, we left for the Royston Turquoise mine. On the way to the turquoise mine we encountered the same poofy dust, (there is that technical geologist term again, thank you Linda). In just a few minutes after reaching the mine everyone was busy digging for those elusive blue nuggets. About noon time mine owner, Dean Otteson, arrived and with his backhoe dug up some previously undisturbed material. We spent a couple of hours at this location and found some really good turquoise. Then it was time to head to the varicite mine where, as we did the week before, we found a lot of this really great restful green material. YUM. If any of our members would be interested in a trip to these mines next year let our field trip leaders, Ray Ramirez and Steve Mobley know. Compared to some other fee digs this one is a bargin.

December fieldtrip - December 16

Join us for an exciting field trip too the Coso Mountains on Sunday, December 16. We'll be looking for these treasures:

• Apache tears
• Psilomelane (manganese)
• Aragonite
• Agate and Jasper

We meet at Lee’s Frontier Chevron in Lone Pine and leave at 9AM. High clearance vehicles recommended. It's an easy hike ½ to ¾ mile up a sandy wash. Bring your standard rockhounding tools:

• Rock pick
• Rock bag, pack, or bucket
• Spray bottle
• Lunch
• Walking stick
• Sun screen
• Hat
• Gloves

Bring along a camera to capture interesting geological formations.

Help Wanted!!! - a word from Francis, our president

Thanks Ray and Steve for taking on the job of field trip chairman/leader. You have taken one big load off of me, but there is still more. I cannot emphasize enough the importance of these jobs to the continued success of our club. Most of these jobs do not require a lot of time and effort by them selves, but they are vital. These positions are federation director, membership chairman, film festival sales/club promotion chairman, insurance chairman, donations chairman, and meeting location chairman.

If you have any questions about these positions, call Francis at 760-876-4319.

Pictures from October field trips

Last month we told you about the club's trip in October to New York Canyon to search for fossils and the Royston Mine to dig for turquoise. Paul Ermatinger sent some of his photos of those two trips for us to enjoy this month.

New York Canyon

Heading up New York Canyon

Linda Baptie was the biggest winner at New York Canyon with a large 3-inch ammonite. Her picture graces the top of our newsletter this month. The other big "find" was spotting a herd of Desert Big-Horn Sheep. Notice how the curve of Linda's ammonite is repeated in the curve of the ram's horns. As it turns out, there is more of a connection between ammonites and sheep than one would suppose. See the following paragraph.

Ammonite trivia

"Ammonites are an extinct group of marine animals of the subclass Ammonoidea in the class Cephalopoda, phylum Mollusca. They are excellent index fossils, and it is often possible to link the rock layer in which they are found to specific geological time periods. Ammonites' closest living relative is probably not the modern Nautilus (which they outwardly resemble), but rather the subclass Coleoidea (octopus, squid, and cuttlefish). Their fossil shells usually take the form of planispirals, although there were some helically-spiraled and non-spiraled forms (known as "heteromorphs"). Their spiral shape begot their name, as their fossilized shells somewhat resemble tightly-coiled rams' horns. Plinius the Elder (died 79 A.D. near Pompeii) called fossils of these animals ammonis cornua ("horns of Ammon") because the Egyptian god Ammon (Amun) was typically depicted wearing ram's horns.

Many ammonoids probably lived in the open water of ancient seas, rather than at the sea bottom. This is suggested by the fact that their fossils are often found in rocks that were laid down under conditions where no bottom-dwelling life is found. Many of them (such as Oxynoticeras) are thought to have been good swimmers with flattened, discus-shaped, streamlined shells, although some ammonoids were less effective swimmers and were likely to have been slow-swimming bottom-dwellers. Ammonites and their kin probably preyed on fishes, crustaceans and other small creatures; while they themselves were preyed upon by such marine reptiles as mosasaurs. Fossilized ammonoids have been found showing teeth marks from such attacks.

The soft body of the creature occupied the largest segments of the shell at the end of the coil. The smaller earlier segments were walled off and the animal could maintain its buoyancy by filling them with gas. Thus the smaller sections of the coil would have floated above the larger sections."

   -- Excerpted from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Royston Turquoise Mine

Checking out some rock samples before they head out to the mine are some club members and a fine specimen of the rare Turquoise Scent Hound. Never let it be said LPGMS members are not prepared when they go in the field. The beautiful blue-green streak is turqoise in the matrix at the entrance of the Royston Mine.

Contacting the editor

If you have material you want published in the newsletter, you can send it to me by email to newsletter AT lpgms.org. Text can be in any format. If you have images, attach them as jpgs to an email message sent to me. If you are using snail mail, you can reach me at:

Linda Jeffries
694 Tuttle Creek Rd.
Lone Pine, CA 93545

If you have any questions, you can call me at 760-876-1009. If you want to receive your newsletter by email only, send me your name and email address in an email message. You'll be saving a tree and your club some money.