the white river sluice · saturday, june 9. septaria, petoskey, and a few lake superior agates have...
TRANSCRIPT
THE WHITE RIVER SLUICE A PUBLICATION OF THE WHITE RIVER ROCK GEM AND MINERAL CLUB
Club Mailing Address: Mike Rakovits, 3736 Pillon Road, Muskegon, MI 49445 Website: www.whiteriverrockgemandmineral.weebly.com
May 2018
Volume 1, Edition 5
Analcime is a zeolite
found
In the Keeweenaw
Peninsula of Michigan
Analcime (say: AH null seem) (NaAlSi2O6 H2O) forms as trapezohedral crystals, which means it has 24 faces in all, and can be found in areas where other Michigan zeolites are found for example mesolite (beige radial crystals), laumontite, and thompsonite (pink and green radial crystals). Analcime’s crystalline shape makes it different from other Michigan zeolites. It is glassy, usually clear, sometimes white, greenish or reddish, and it’s found where you find copper and pyrite. It forms in rock cavities in basalts. Laumontite is also found in basalt, but it usually crumbles because it loses water over time. The hardness of analcime is 5-5½, softer than garnet, though the shape of the two minerals is similar. Specific gravity is 2.3. Fracture is subconchoidal. Although folks hunting zeolites are most often looking for thompsonite in copper country, analcime is a delight to find as well.
White River Rock Gem and Mineral Club
Next Meeting on New Day—Monday— On Monday, June 4 at 7:00 P.M. the club will meet at the
White Lake Community Education Center, Room 103.
Address: 541 East Slocum Street, Whitehall, MI
Directions: Take Colby St. (Bus. Rte. U.S. 31) west from U.S. 31 to Franklin St. Turn left on Franklin. Continue to Slocum Street. Cross Slocum into the West parking lot. Enter through west doors. Gemologist Eric Peterson will present a program on gemstone
identification. Bring along your favorite gemstone and let Eric
tell you about it.
FIELD TRIP—June 9 We will rock hunt along Deer Lick Creek in South Haven, on
Saturday, June 9. Septaria, Petoskey, and a few Lake
Superior Agates have been found along this one mile creek-
walk from Deer Lick Park to 18th Street. We will meet at the
Mall Meijer’s Outer Parking Lot (5300 South Harvey,
Muskegon) at 10:00A. M.
Bring:
• Extra shoes or waders, because the good rocks
are always in the water.
• Plenty of drinking water
• A picnic lunch
• Sunscreen & bug repellant
• Buckets for your rocks
• A backpack also works well
• Gloves, rock scoops, a long screwdriver to poke
rocks out of the sand, and anything else essential
to a good day of collecting. Remember to dress
for the weather, and take an extra jacket along
Board of Directors President: Vicki Hartung
Mike Rakovits (231) 766-3422
Vice President: Kay Le Mieux
Secretary: Suzanne Ritchie [email protected]
Brauen Gustafson
Treasurer: Glenn Gustafson
(231) 788-3266
Bert Wilson
Immediate Past President: Vondie Knoll
(231) 894-1510
Event Director:
Field Trip Coordinator:
Social Coordinator: Jeffrey Beekman
(231) 893-1459
Historian: Brauen Gustafson
Director at Large #1: Bill Burt
Director at Large #2:
Newsletter Editor: Vondie Knoll
(231) 894-1510
Youth Program Director:
Liaison Director: Vicki Hartung
Show Coordinator:
IT Director: Eric Peterson
(231) 780-7016
Membership Coordinator: Kay Le Mieux
Grant Writing Director:
*****************************
Submissions to The White River Sluice
should be sent on a memory stick via snail
mail to: Vondie Knoll, Editor
600 East Fruitvale Rd.
Montague, MI 49437
Or to hand deliver:
Call Vondie @ (231) 894-1510.
Deadline for Submissions is the 2nd Friday
after the General Meeting.
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UPCOMING ROCK SHOWS, ETC. MAY 19-20: Blossomland Gem & Mineral Society
Annual Show. Sat. 9AM-6PM, Sun. Noon-6PM. Lake
Michigan Catholic Elementary School, 3165
Washington Ave.,
St Joseph, MI
JUNE 1-3: Stateline Gem & Mineral Society Annual
Show. Fri. Noon-6PM,
Sat. 10AM-6PM, Sun. 11AM-4PM, Fulton County
Fairgrounds, 8514 SR-108, Wauseon, OH
JUNE 22-24: Lawrence County Rock Club Annual
Show. Fri. 10AM-6:30PM, Sat. 9AM-6:30 PM, Sun.
10AM-4PM, Lawrence County Fairgrounds, US Hwy.
50, Bedford, IN
JULY 14: Flint Rock & Gem Club Rock Swap.
9AM-5PM, Flint Rock & Gem Club Classroom, 11350
N. Saginaw Rd. Clio, MI
WHITE RIVER CLUB NEWS
We have been accepted as Members of the Midwest
Federation of Mineralogical and Geological
Societies. We have secured a place at the White
Lake Community Center for our monthly meetings.
We will meet on Monday night for regular general
meetings.
We currently have open positions on our Board of
Directors for an Event Director, Field Trip
Coordinator, Director at Large #2, Youth Program
Director, Show Coordinator, and Grant Writing
Director. If you are able to serve your club in any
of these positions, or if you would like more
information about these positions, please speak to
Club President Mike Rakovits.
As members of the Federation we are able to attend
other clubs’ meetings within the Federation and
invite them to our meetings, as well as invite them
to our Field Trips, and join theirs when invited.
This is something we worked hard to accomplish.
Congratulations to all involved—Roger & Sharon
Bowen, Mike R. & Vicki H., Vondie K. and the rest of
the Board. Thanks to all of you!
JULY 14 CLUB PICNIC
Our July Meeting will be a picnic at the Pavilion on the White River. This is at Vondie’s House, 600 East Fruitvale Road, (Blue Lake Township) Montague, Michigan. Come around 3:00, if you’re coming for the picnic and to visit, earlier if you plan to pan gold or float the river. We will eat at 5:00 PM. Paper plates, cups, plastic ware, et cetera, condiments, and beverages will be provided. The club will furnish hot dogs and buns. If you prefer burgers, please bring your own. There is a large charcoal grill where you can cook the meat of your choice. Please bring a dish to pass that is adequate to feed a group. You may bring a hot dish, salad or dessert . ALSO BRING: Bug repellant & sunscreen, lawn chairs if you want to. Dress for the weather.
Arrive any time Saturday to participate in the following activities: Horse shoes or volleyball, or bring your own tubes kayaks or canoes and float down from Diamond Point. Plan on taking about an hour on the river if you’re tubing, ¾ of an hour in a canoe or kayak. Or you may make reservations with Happy Mohawk Canoe Livery for the day or part of it. Just plan to be back in time to eat at 5:00. Do you want to try your hand at panning gold? Members may sign up to try this. Anyone in a watercraft on the river must wear a life jacket. This is especially critical for children. The river current is strong. –And it’s the law. Critical to your health & safety: WEAR WATER SHOES in the river!
Contact Vondie @ (231) 894-1510 for more information.
JUNE RAFFLE ITEMS
1. National
Geographic
Magazine and
Quartz Crystal &
Igneous,
Sedimentary and
Metamorphic
Mineral Samples,
2. Two Magnetic
Decorative Hooks
3. “Mystery”
Cabochons
1.
2.
3.???
Tickets will be sold at the
meeting. $1.00 each or 6
for $5.00
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A Field Tripping Tale Flint Diggers
For Steve Miller
--After the Ohio Field Trip Rock hammer, pickaxe, pressurized
water sprayer, optional—safety glasses,
hand cultivator, any tool to dig scratch
or burrow into the wet yellow clay,
the under soil of the pit recently exposed
by a farmer using heavy equipment.
Except for the ease of digging the pit
with the farmer’s machine,
we do as was done for the last few thousand years
in this place called Flint Ridge
where the Hopewell Indians settled
and collected flint from 100 BC to 500 AD.
They were pit diggers and mound builders
who sought the flint for its sharp edges
which we try to avoid.
We seek the fine colors: pale blue,
blue-gray, white, black, red, mustard,
light yellow, pink, magenta, rose, pale green—
the banded, the agatized, the marbled, mottled,
colorful stuff with its conchoidal fractures,
its chalcedony, its silica, and the crystallized druzy, smoky,
amber, burgundy, black, and rock crystal
clear quartz— the million pockets of magic
formed in brittle mineral-rich flint.
We work on hands and knees in the pits, in the mud.
We work with our hands cut and bleeding.
We work back-breaking, stooped, bent over,
prying, poking, scrabbling, dreaming, hoping. . . .
We work for the joy of it.
We work for the hurt of it,
for the separate and together,
communal and solitary, satisfying effort.
With the sun filtering between the trees,
hay field to the east, wood land to the west,
and us in the middle, we work the earthen holes.
In the slippery clay-mud, in the shards, in the splintered,
slippery, flaked flint, we slide down,
tripping on our own feet and on treacherous soil.
We climb out, pockets heavy, fanny packs bulging,
back packs with seams burst,
and overfull buckets of flint,
rocks that hold ancient memories.
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Fire starting spark-maker, arrowhead, spear-point,
adze, axe, mortar and pestle, hammer-head,
scraper, small hand-grindstone, artifacts found.
And flaked flint leaves,
stockpiled two thousand years ago
for barter or as money or grave goods
Today we cut it, form it, shape it,
turn it into cabochons, or slabs, or polished stones
for collections, or we keep it as natural specimens.
This rock, formed three million years ago,
was thrust up from the depths of earth
two millions years ago.
We touch this earth that came from the center,
from the ancient ages, color hidden deep
in secret earth, and finally exposed in this small place
called Flint Ridge. Everyone who wants the good silica-rich flint
comes to dig here, same as the Hopewell Indians
who arrived at this place two thousand years ago.
As we mine our flint we wonder
who those people were, the Woodland North Americans who
measured the distance
between solstice and equinox, who practiced mathematics and a
religion, who worshipped earth and sun,
and who disappeared suddenly
after creating fantastic earthworks.
Mound builders, serpent and opossum effigy creators,
designers of eggs and two headed eagles,
all made with skeletal forms of rock filled in with clay-sand.
What were the rituals practiced within the grand circles of the
Hopewell’s Earthworks?
Why was every great hall and every barrow and every
underground structure filled in with soil and abandoned
suddenly near 500 AD? What happened to the traders and
artists, the priests and mathematicians and engineers? Who
were the people who settled at the edge of the glacier when the
last glaciation ended?
And for that matter, who really are we,
who wait for weather,
who believe without investigation,
who wonder without understanding,
we, who worry and wait
for the next glaciation to begin?
—Vondalee Knoll, c. 2018
Coming this Fall: A Field Trip to Collect
Fluorite in Kentucky! (see page 5)
Let’s Explore Southern Illinois and the Western Kentucky Fluorite
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Earth is the Artist. Wait until you see what else she can do! Consider the incredible beauty of minerals. Consider that you can find these
fabulous things underground, sometimes without much effort. Then ask yourself why you would not want to collect treasures
like these? Since there is no good answer to that, why don’t you come join our geology and mineralogy club?
We’re having all the fun, and we want to share our adventures and our travels, our gorgeous rocks and our good times with you.
Come join the White River Rock Gem and Mineral Club. We’re family-friendly, and everyone is welcome.
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