THE BADGER DIGGIN’S

The Badger Lapidary and Geological Society, Inc.

Monroe, Wisconsin

Devoted to the Earth Sciences

Vol. 53, No. 5 May, 2018

 

It  looks  like  a  giant  gorgeous  azurite,  but  it  is  actually  microscopic.  This  photo  was  taken  a  few  years  ago  at  one  of  the  club’s  meetings.  The  specimen  belongs  to  Dan  Trocke.    

Dan  will  be  presenting  a  program  on  Mineral  Identification  at  the  May  meeting.  Bring  your  mysteries!  

 

 

From the Editor – Teri Marché

OK, we have minutes from the last meeting, thanks to Tammy, who is thankfully recovered well enough to pick up her secretarial duties. Keep it going, Tammy! There are also a couple of notices about upcoming fieldtrips. Those new to the club will notice that we do not publish exact localities (for good reasons!), and that we do not either caravan as a group from WI, nor do we all necessarily stay at the same hotels or campgrounds. Instead, we set up a meeting place near the collecting sites and a time to meet. We caravan from there. I am expecting that the next newsletter will have info on some other trips. Note that it will be the last newsletter before September.

Next Due Date, May 31.

   

Our Next Meeting May 12, 2018

10:30 a.m.

Mystic Moraine Minerals 500 W. Milwaukee St.

Janesville, WI

Program: Mineral Identification

Dan Trocke

 

Officer Roster:

President Laurie Trocke 4771 CTH II Highland, WI 53543 608-935-0597 laurie.trocke@landsend.com Vice-President Cliff Thomas 3321 W. Loomis Rd., Apt. 5 Milwaukee, WI 53221 414-982-8619 cliftc06@hotmail.com Secretary Tamara Unger-Peterson 3626 Falcon Ridge Dr. Janesville, WI 53548 tungerpete@gmail.com Treasurer Jack Hoxie 500 W. Milwaukee St. Janesville, WI 53548 608-563-0223 jhoxie@hotmail.com Newsletter Editor Teri Marché 5415 Lost Woods Court Oregon, WI 53575 608-835-2653 tmarche555@gmail.com Field Trip Chair Dan Trocke 4771 CTH II Highland, WI 53543 608-935-0597 Dan.trocke@gmail.com Show Chairperson Debbie Wehinger 708 W 2nd Avenue Brodhead, WI 53520 608-897-2608 jdrules3@gmail.com   Officer at Large Clay Schroll 1795 S. Demeter Drive Freeport, IL 61032 815-233-2136 mrclay71@me.com          

Calendar, 2018 May 12 Meeting – Rock/Mineral ID May 26 Fieldtrip – Indiana June 9 Picnic – Shullsburg June 23 Fieldtrip - Bellevue, IA & Crystal Lake Cave

July 14 Fieldtrip - South Dakota July 28 Fieldtrip - Mazon Creek Area Aug. 11 Fieldtrip - U. P. Michigan Aug. 25 Fieldtrip - Dodgeville Roadcut HWY 23 Quarry Sept. 8 Meeting – Show & Tell Sept. 22 Lapidary Day Oct. 13 Meeting – Soapstone Carving Oct. 27 Fieldtrip - Prairie du Chien Nov. 10 Meeting – Video/Freeport Show

Thanksgiving

Dec. 8 Annual Party

 

MInutes  of  the  meeting  April  14,  2018,   10:30am  |  Meeting  called  to  order  by  President,  Laurie  Trocke  

Attendance: April’s meeting was held at Mystic Moraine Minerals in Janesville. Meeting attendee list available from Secretary. Approval of the minutes: There were no meeting minutes published from the previous club meeting to vote on and/or approve. Announcements: Badger Diggin’s reprints - Articles previously published in the BLGS Badger Diggin’s newsletter written by Jordan Marche and Kim Hunter are showing up in publications such as the Midwest Federation newsletter. Concluding that Badger Diggin’s material is timeless and enjoyed by rock hounds everywhere! Johnny Fay Cabochons – Johnny Fay has brought beautiful cabs for purchase and viewing pleasure. Beloit School District annual STEAM Festival – April 25, 2018. Club members have provided demonstrations for this

Science/Technology fair in previous years and Darsha Olsen, teacher at McNeel Intermediate School in Beloit, and BLGS club member, is soliciting BLGS club member demonstrators for the student festival exploring science, technology, engineering, art and math. Please contact Darla if you would like to bring a demonstration to this festival. See club newsletter for contact information. Club Faceter – The club faceting machine is at Jack’s (Mystic Moraine Minerals) and is available for club member use. If enough members have an interest in learning faceting, Bill Jeske would be available to teach a class. Fees and details will be discussed. Treasurer’s Report: The annual BLGS Rock/Gem/Mineral Show yielded good revenue. The club table, free-will donations, and kid activities allowed our profits to exceed our costs. These profits allow for club outings and meeting events and aside from membership dues allow our club to function. Old Business: No old business. New Business: Club Name tags and T-shirts – President Laurie Trocke has received club feedback on the desire for name tags and club T-shirts. Laurie provided name tag and T-shirt options. Prices vary depending on the number of members that wish to participate. Tamara Unger-Peterson, Secretary, solicited sign-ups for members to indicate preferences of both. Laurie will review club preferences and report back to the club. Show Business: 48th annual BLGS Rock, Gem and Mineral Show – Held March 24 & 25th at the Janesville Craig Center and again was a success!

• Attendance was high on Saturday, and Sunday had a moderately good crowd.

• We solicited locations from attendees upon arrival and Deb’s review of those zip codes found attendees came from all over the state, well down into Illinois, and states such as New York, Indiana, and Missouri. This will assist us in evaluating our advertising for the show.

• We continue to get a lot of positive feedback from vendors and the public on the show’s venue.

• Motion was made and passed by membership to have a show next year

• Show planning meetings will be scheduled throughout the year and sub-chairs

assigned to assist with show preparations for 2018.

Kudos to Debbie Wehinger, Show Chair, for all her hard work and to all volunteers that make this happen every year.

Upcoming Events: Moonstone dig, April 28, 2018, two, two-hour time slots (morning/afternoon). See Deb Wehinger for details.

Motion to adjourn: was made at 12:00 and the club activity of jewelry wire wrapping ensued. Respectfully submitted, Tamara Unger-Peterson

Indiana Fieldtrip – May 26 & 27. We will be centered on Bloomington, in the south-central part of the state. It is about a 6 to 7 hour drive from Wisconsin, so some of us are planning to drive down on Friday, May 25th and return on Monday, May 28th. On Saturday we will be collecting geodes, some of them fossils, in the creeks. Bring water shoes for wading and swim gear if you want to get wet! . On Sunday we’ll be heading a bit north and east from Bloomington to hit some roadcuts for fossils. Trilobites are a distinct possibility. This will be primarily surface collecting, so no picks or shovels. A geo hammer or screwdriver, or small garden cultivator should do nicely. However, we will be along the roadway, so care will be needed. We will meet each day at 9 AM at the Monroe Reservoir Campground Visitor Center parking lot. This is on Hwy. 446, east of Bloomington. It is right on the highway; do not go down into the campground.         Driving  Directions:  From  the  north,  take  State  Rd  37  south  to  State  Rd.  45  east  past  Bloomington.  Pick  up  State  Rd  46  east  to  State  Rd  446  south.  If  you  need  hotel  or  camping  information,  and  if  you  plan  to  attend,  contact  Dan  Trocke,  608-935-0597 Dan.trocke@gmail.com

If  we  know  how  many  are  coming,  we  will  know  when  everyone  has  arrived!

South Dakota Fieldtrip, July 12 -16

Because of the drive time, Deb and I will be travelling to South Dakota on Wednesday, July 11. We will be staying at the Badlands/White River KOA campground. There are a number of other campgrounds in the area. On July 12 we will be collecting at a ranch just west of Wall, SD. We will be looking for fossil ammonites, baculites and Inoceramus oysters in nodules in the Pierre Shale, or hunting Fairburn

agates in the local stream and grasslands. Then we will head into the Black Hills. On July 13 we will be searching mine piles at several locations near Keystone, SD for lepidolite, indicolite tourmaline, and garnets. Deb and I will be staying at Kemp’s Kamp just west of Keystone for the next four nights. On July 14, we will visit sites in the Custer, SD area for beryl, schorl tourmaline, mica and spodumene. On the 15th, we will take a poll of the group to see if we wish to re-visit any of the mines, or try for something new. Apart from collecting, there are several very good places for sightseeing, including the Black Hills Institute in Hill City, the Mammoth Site, Wind Cave, and the Crazy Horse Monument. Custer National Park also has a terrific wildlife driving route. On July 16 we will collect in the area of Railroad Butte on the Grassland, looking for agates and fluorescent chalcedony. Deb and I will overnight again at the Badlands White River KOA before heading home. For specific details about meeting times and places in SD, and to let us know when you are coming, contact Teri Marché at 608 835-2653, or tmarche555@gmail.com. Please note that you can come for all or any portion of this trip; however, we need to know what you are planning!

A Geological Educational Collaboration Jim  &  Pam  Richards  

The Northwest Illinois Rock Club, Badger Lapidary and Geological Society, and the Rock River Valley Gem and Mineral Society collaborated on educational hands-on displays and presentations recently at Seth Whitman Elementary School in Belvidere. The first grade teacher, Ms. Leese, requested speakers to enhance her unit on rocks and fossils. The three clubs provided four learning stations: Fossils, Geodes, Minerals, and Glacial Till. The students were very enthusiastic about handling a megalodon tooth (large, extinct shark), coprolite (fossilized dinosaur dung), opening cracked geodes, and being in-the-dark with glowing rocks! They learned that our area was once a shallow tropical sea and they can find fossils and minerals in their own backyards. If you are interested in a local club, you may contact Brian Green, president of NWI Rock Club at 815-745-2228. The pictures below show Pam Richards,

Master Naturalist, opening an intact trilobite specimen millions of years old. Handouts and coloring pages were distributed to the teacher for further review.

 

 

A  New  Theory  of  Extinction  Events    submitted  by  Marv  Hanner     Most of us know about the major extinction event that did away with the dinosaurs about 66 million years ago. There were four other major events before that one and numerous lesser events. There was even one major event (the Great Oxygenation Event) that was even more impacting. It's just that there was not much life on earth at that time (2400 million years ago).

Some scientists have been studying geological data with fresh eyes recently and are drawing new and interesting

conclusions. New, high-tech, dating technology has more precisely timed the dates of volcanic eruptions. With the exception of the Cretaceous-Paleogene event 66 million years ago, every major extinction event has been tied to an eruption of a large igneous province (LIP). One eruption, about 252 million years ago, occurred in what is now Russia (the Siberian Traps). The overburden, perhaps 10,000 feet thick, restrained the lava for quite some time, but it eventually burst through. The eruptions were linked with the release of copious quantities of toxic sulfur and carbon dioxide gases. It is said that these greenhouse gases may have raised global temperatures by more than 20 degrees Farenheight. Such sulfur- containing rocks and coal deposits are not found everywhere, perhaps underlying only a small part of the earth's crust.

The Cretaceous-Paleogene event 66 million years ago also released toxic sulfur-laden gases from underlying rock formations. The new theory postulates that, if the meteorite/comet had hit elsewhere, toxic gases in such large amount might not have caused such drastic results! Maybe more dinosaurs might have survived. So who would speculate on such happenings!

Many other LIP's have been discovered in the last decade or so. They did not appear to have produced mass extinctions. Source: Eric Betz, “Mass Extinctions Might Come From Below,” Discover Magazine. March, 2018.

Badger Lapidary & Geological Society, Inc.

Teri Marché, Editor

5415 Lost Woods Court

Oregon, WI 53575