Lone Pine Gem & Mineral Society Newsletter

June 2008

The Gem and Mineral Show

Our 5th annual Eastern Sierra Gem and Mineral Show held in Bishop, California is history. And what a show it was!

The show got excellent advance coverage in the Inyo Register, which helped boost the attendance. The dealers went home happy and wanting to come back next year. Our attendees were happy and very impressed with our show. The winners of our door prizes were pleased and the raffle of the big purple thing, an amethyst geode, was a success. Best of all we had great participation from our club members and gained new members. Thanks to all of you who helped. The accompanying image is of our show chairman, Jeff Lines, at the show. Special thanks, Jeff, for all your efforts to make the show such a success.

Think Barbecue

Our annual summer barbecue and July meeting will be July 13th, 2008 at the Pedneau's at 221 W. Bush St in Lone Pine. Mark your calendar; festivities begin at 2:00 p.m.. We'll combine our monthly meeting with hearty eating and, by popular demand, a silent auction.

Bring your favorite side dish and the club will furnish the hot dogs and hamburgers plus all the fixings. If you have something special you want to drink, please bring it. Does anyone have anything for the auction? Call Francis, if you do.

Gem Stone Carving Class

The gem stone carving class is scheduled for Sunday August 3rd, 2008. We have a full class of six participants. The classes will be held at 221 W. Bush St. in Lone Pine.

June 22 Field Trip to Cerro Gordo

While there are no LPGMS field trips specifically for June and July, there is the very popular annual field trip held in conjunction with the California Federation of Mineralogical Societies (CFMS) to Cerro Gordo. Cerro Gordo offers more diverse mineral specimens than any other mine in California.

If you'd like to go, meet on Sunday, June 22, at Lee's Chevron at 8:00 a.m. There is a $5.00 fee for each person. Bring the usual rockhounding tools.

Inyoite

This article comes to us from Roger De Hart, a geologist who is generously shares his knowledge with us.

Inyoite was originally discovered and named in 1914 (as was meyerhofferite) at the Mount Blanco Mine in the Black Mountains just west of Ryan near 20 Mule Team Canyon in what is now Death Valley National Park. It is a borate mineral named after Inyo County.

Meyerhofferite was named after Wilhelm Meyerhoffer (1864-1906) who originally made a synthetic analogue of the mineral before it was discovered in Inyo County.

The small mine that produced the two new types of mineral crystals was a short tunnel, perhaps 50 feet long with a couple of small side tunnels. The ore of the mine was mostly drusy gray colemanite, but in one of the little side tunnels pockets a white, opaque meyerhofferite was found and then the clear inyoite crystals were found. (Colemanite was discovered in 1884 in Inyo County and named after William Coleman, owner of the Harmony Borax Works in Death Valley.)

Inyoite is a calcium borate mineral, which is a monoclinic crystal (3 unequal axes with one oblique intersection). It has a vitreous (glassy) luster and is transparent. It is colorless. It has a hardness of 2 and is brittle. Cleavage is distinct and fractures irregular/uneven.

Over time Inyoite can recrystalize, lose some water, and become meyerhofferite which is a triclinic crystal (3 unequal axes with all oblique intersections). Meyerfofferite over time can also recrystalize, lose some water, and become colemanite, which is again a monoclinic crystal.

Inyoite is a borate mineral that will not turn white or crumble into white powder due to humidity in a short time as many other borates will. Nor does it loose its luster due to sunlight. It is quite stable. Crystals up to 3 inches have been reported, but the better specimens seldom have crystals over an inch (2.5 cm). Inyoite has been identified in a dozen localities in nine countries.

It is relatively rare. Mineral specimens (5-13 cm) range in value from $75 to $500 depending upon size, shape, and clarity of the crystals.

In 2005 the international mining company of Rio Tinto Zinc (RTZ) sent a geologist to the northern part of Argentina in the Alta Plano region to see if some of their small borate mines could be reclaimed. While visiting a little borate deposit at Monte Azul he found larger and more transparent crystals of Inyoite than he had ever seen. Many were completely unaltered, sharp, lustrous, and quite transparent. He spent two days collecting specimens. Many of his specimens were simply world class and museum quality. By the time he returned the following year the ore deposit had been mined out. (Rio Tinto Zinc bought American Borate (formerly U.S. Borax) years ago and currently owns the borate mine at Boron and the mining camp of Ryan in Death Valley.)

H.R. 554: Paleontological Resources Preservation Act

Francis, our President, alerts us to a bill currently working its way through Congress. This bill has to do with collecting fossils and the restriction on anyone collecting on public land. (Editor's note: A quick internet search brought up an interesting link, http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h110-554, which lets you read the text and tells you what is happening with the bill.)

You Might Be A Rockhound ...

• If you judge a restaurant by the type of decorative building stone they use rather than their food.

• If the only thing you notice about attractive members of the opposite sex is the stone in their jewelry.

• If you like rock music only because it is called “rock” music.

• If you named your children Rocky, Jewel, Beryl, Ruby or Crystal. Also, you might be a rock hound if you are not sure if you have children.

• If you find yourself compelled to examine individual rocks in driveway gravel.

Courtesy of Roger De Hart

Upcoming events

• Club meeting night: June 2, Monday, at Lo-Inyo Elementary School at 6:30 pm. Join us for dinner at the Bonanza at 5:15.
• Shop night: June 3, Tuesday starting at 7:00 pm. Join us at MacDonald's at 6:00 for dinner.
• Annual summer barbecue: July 13th at 2:00 pm. This is also our monthly meeting for July. Gather at 221 W. Bush St., Lone Pine.

Notes from your editor

I am very appreciative to all those who contribute content and photos for the newsletter. You make the newsletter so much more interesting for all our readers. If others wish to do so, don't be shy. Send me text or photos to linda at lpgms.org (replace the word 'at' with @ and squish linda, @, and lpgms.org all together to make a regular email address. I can't show you an example, because the newsletter is published on the web at lpgms.org and therefore, any published email address is picked up by spammers.) I do reserve the right to edit content and make decisions about which articles and photos to publish. Most likely I will be thrilled to have your contributions.

We now have quite a few members who are receiving the newsletter through email or are reading it online at lpgms.org. This really cuts down on our cost for the newsletter. I invite any one else who is a regular computer user to elect to receive your newsletter through email. Send me an email message at linda at lpgms.org, and I'll add you to our email newsletter list. Your club thanks you.

Contact numbers

• President: Francis Pedneau - 760-876-4319; franceem at qnet.com
• Vice President: Ray Ramirez - 760-872-0624
• Newsletter editor: Linda Jeffries - 760-876-1009; linda at lpgms.org