www.cochisecountyrock.org
“Finding and Grinding Rocks in Cochise County, Arizona Since 1962”
MAY 2005
This issue edited by Paul McKnight
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Our next meeting will be Monday, May 9 at 7 pm. The business meeting will be followed by an educational film on making stone tools (flint knapping).
The May field trip will be Saturday, May 14 to the Johnson Camp Mine. See enclosed field trip notice. Meet at The Thing on I-10 at 8 am.
Always check the web site for breaking news on planned field trips.
Eleven vehicles and about 25 members participated in the April 24 field trip to Tehran Wash north of Benson along the San Pedro river. After a brief speech by Ed Fenn on the history of the Tres Alamos area, we found some Jasper and encountered a couple of desert tortoises. After lunch at the dinosaur tracks, 5 or 6 4WD vehicles climbed out of the wash into the hills to the east and found some more plentiful Jasper. A good time was had by all the humans and three dogs.
The meeting we co-sponsored with the Amerind foundation drew 77 people. Here is what the speaker, Dr. Deni Seymour said about it:
“Wow; 77, I did not realize there were that many people there. I really enjoyed speaking. It was an enthusiastic crowd and I felt they really wanted to hear what I had to say. That is always encouraging. Be sure to thank your members for their enthusiasm; it makes it all worthwhile, including arriving home at midnight!”
Here is an excerpt from the letter the Club received from John Ware, Director of the Amerind Foundation:
“Many thanks for your club’s generous donation of $250.00 to the Amerind Foundation. We are, in fact, currently working with a geologist to develop a brochure describing the geology of Texas Canyon, and your gift will be especially helpful in funding its production. We get many questions from museum visitors about the geology of this area, and the brochure should be helpful and informative…I enjoyed speaking to your group and would be happy to do another presentation any time.”
Anyone who would like to get started with lapidary training should contact Larry Strout at 826-3991
Tombstone Gem and Mineral Show 3
June 17th – 19th, 2005
Tombstone Holiday Inn Express
1001 N. Highway 80 in Tombstone
www.tombstonegemshow.info
President Paul McKnight 520 824-4054 paulmc@vtc.net
Vice-President Curt Kelly 520 826-1136
Secretary Don Hammer 520 384-3105 dahammer@vtc.net
Treasurer Larry Edgett
Board Member at large Marie Sherman 520 826-4004
May
9 Regular Meeting followed by video on making stone tools (flint knapping)
14 Field Trip – Johnson Camp Mine by Clive Bailey meet at The Thing at 8 am
June
11 Picnic at Randy Stewart’s gold mine -meet at Senior Center 10 am
July
Field Trip
August
Field Trip
September
10 Board Meeting
12 Regular Meeting – public meeting on…
17 Field Trip
October
8 Board Meeting
10 Regular meeting - demo
15 Field Trip
November
12 Board Meeting
14 Regular Meeting – elections, no speaker
19 Field Trip
December
5 or 12 Christmas Party – potluck
The sign on the side of the road says "Falling Rock" and you pull over to wait.
You accessorize your black & white cat with a collar that you made from the most FABULOUS snowflake obsidian for "dressy" days... then there's the turquoise for "casual" walks, carnelian and leopardskin jasper for "outdoorsy" fun... and don't forget the rose quartz, chrysoprase and blue lace agate for picture day!
The severe sunburn acquired on your last vacation was a one inch wide strip of skin at the gap between the tail of your shirt and the top of your pants.
Watching the movie Armageddon while New York is being destroyed, all you can think about is all the great specimens there would be if that really happened.
Sunsites Gem & Mineral Club
P.O. Box 87
Pearce, Arizona 85625
General Meeting Minutes April 11, 2005
Attendees: Paul and Beth McKnight, Jeannine Paterson, Richard & Barbara Yeager, Larry Strout, Jack & Cindy Weller, Ken LaFayette, Irvin and Carol Pontius, Don Wells, Maja Peters, Connie Morrison, Larry and Ilse-Rose Edgett, Wanda Arnoldi, Curt and Susan Kelly, Don and Joan Hammer, Retha Brouhard, Richard & Susan Bishop, Casey Dennis, Jack Light, Irma Andrews, Bob & Barbara Fenner, Mary King, Marge Brando, John Lewellen and Walter & Hanni Sigel. (Your Secretary failed to start the sign-up sheet around early enough and some attendees may not be listed.)
President Paul McKnight called the meeting to order at 7:02 pm and asked if there weren’t any changes to the minutes of the previous meeting as published in the newsletter that they be approved as published. Approved. Guests Carol Cartmell and Geri Ladroot were introduced. Larry Edgett reported that as of March 14 we had a balance of $5204.38 and he had disbursed checks as follows: Senior Center for locker rental - $10.00, Rocky Mountain Federation for dues and insurance - $163.50, Ilse Edgett for name tag holders - $38.40, Paul McKnight for cutting oil, postage and copying - $44.91. Bank Charges were $9.00 and dues deposited were $60.00 leaving a balance as of April 11 of $4948.57. Approved. Larry Strout reported that the lapidary classes were doing well and a new slab saw was on order at a cost of $202 plus $13.50 shipping charges. Dick Yeager and Irvine Pontius are joining the Saturday lapidary class. President McKnight explained that the Board was reviewing a set of draft By-Laws and planned to present them to the membership in the fall. He also explained the field trip led by Ed Fenn on April 24 to Tehran Wash for jasper and dinosaur tracks and asked those interested to pick up a handout describing the meeting place at the Benson Feed Store and times. And he explained the May 14 field trip would be led by Clive Bailey to the Johnson Camp Mine. Paul read John Ware’s (Amerind Foundation) letter thanking the Club for the honorarium and relating that the funds would be used to publish a brochure on the geology of Texas Canyon. The picnic in mid-June will be held at Randy Stewart’s gold mine in the Dragoon Mountains. Don Hammer asked if evryone had had a chance to read the draft Constitution and asked if anyone had any changes. Larry Strout moved and Beth McKnight seconded approval of the draft Constitution. Approved. Jeanine Paterson explained that Home Depot had rejected the Fire Department’s request for assistance in renovating the Arts and Crafts Building and that the Fire Department planned to submit a proposal for assistance on only the roof and a new floor. Dick Yeager moved adjournment at 7:15 with unanimous approval.
Following refreshments and socializing 77 Club members and the public heard an excellent, illustrated presentation on the evidence for Athabascan peoples in the Dragoon Mountains as early as 1400 by Dr. Deni Seymour.
Respectfully submitted,
Donald A. Hammer, Secretary
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Meet at The Thing on I-10 at 8 am. We will leave at 8:15. Former Club President Clive Bailey will give us a tour of the Johnson Camp Mine just north of The Thing.
Stuff to bring:
As your President, I would like to briefly review our accomplishments so far this year. We began with our January meeting where the remnants of the 2004 membership gathered to elect officers and approve a budget. This gathering was followed by a public meeting on the subject of plate tectonics attended by 52 people.
We have had 4 well-attended field trips so far and two additional public meetings: one featuring Randy Stewart on filing mining claims and owning a gold mine, and the most recent one on the ancestral Apaches attended by 77 people. We have grown from 17 members to 53 and reinstituted the lapidary classes.
Not bad for an organization that had a near-death experience last November when a motion to dissolve failed only because it was a tie vote of 7 to 7. I think we have shown that there is a niche for a rock club in this area. - Paul McKnight
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(Your editor went to a week-long Agate trip in New Mexico in the fall of 2003. The leader of this adventure was Yonis Lone Eagle. Every morning at 8 am, we would line up our cars behind the lead vehicle driven by Yonis and head for Agate and Jasper areas. Yonis was an officer with the Rocky Mountain Federation. He brought his wife and his 18-month-old son Dusty on the trips. In January I emailed him a copy of our newsletter. I was surprised to get a return email from Iraq asking if we would be interested in publishing a series of articles from a rockhound on duty in Iraq. This is the second in that series.)
Rock Hunting in an Iraqi Combat Zone
(Rockhounding at its Extreme)
PART 2 of ??? – March 2005
by
Yonis E. Lone Eagle
Howdy fellow “Hunters of Nature’s Wonders.” (Another name for Rockhounds) Well, it has been a very interesting first three months over here just outside Tikrit, Iraq. Located on the west bank of the Tigris river, Tikrit is located up along highway “1” northwest of Baghdad, about 1/3 the distance between Baghdad and Mosul. It is the hometown of the former dictator, Saddam Hussein. The population here is about 75,000.
The thirty-two-bed hospital where I work is located on FOB (Forward Operation Base) Speicher (pronounced Spiker), one of the many U.S. military base camps here Iraq. FOB Speicher is a former Iraqi Air Force base. It is located just northwest of the town of Tikrit. The barracks we are living once housed the students of the Iraqi Air Force Academy. After the initial invasion, locals looted and ransacked the base stealing anything and everything that they could sell for money; light fixtures, sinks, air conditioners, toilets, heaters, motors, scrap metal, etc. If you could sell it for money, they took it. So when the U.S. forces returned to set up a FOB here, there was not much left to work with. About 80% of the buildings were in major disrepair with bullet holes, bomb damage, no electricity or running water. Our troops had their work cut out for them to make this place functional as well as livable. One of the first things they had to do was to clear out all the tons of unexploded ordinances in the area.
Now eighteen months later, there have been major improvements in certain areas while other area are slowly being worked on. While the military has taken care of most of the major elements; roads, electricity, dining facilities, gyms, and morale recreation centers, the sleeping areas have been left up to the individual units. Every battalion size unit is given $25,000 a month to use for fixing, repairing and make the living and sleeping areas comfortable for the thousands of troops here. During the winter, the temperature drops to the upper 20s to low 30s. So the units bought heaters for the rooms. And during the summer with ground temperatures getting up around 130+ degrees, air conditioners were bought. And to keep the troops entertained, satellite TV’s were bought so they could watch their favorite sports and movies. We have a BX (Base Exchange) here on the FOB, along with Pizza Hut, Subway, Burger King, a Beauty Salon and Spa, Barber Shop, Alterations/Cleaners, a Photo Lab, a Bazaar and Gift Shop. Other facilities include a gym, three great dining facilities, a post theater, a recreation hall, and use of the old stadium. All the basics of a small military base.
With all the ongoing construction and troop movements, there is a very large amount of DUST created on all the back and side roads on the FOB. And here lately, its been the rainy season here in Iraq. From late January to early March, it rains every couple of days. So all the DUST turns to MUD. To combat this dust and mud problem, the US Army Corps of Engineers and KBR contractors have brought in TONS upon TONS upon TONS of well-tumbled river rock to cover the dirt roads and pathways around the FOB.
The day I arrived here at FOB Speicher, we had a briefing by our company commander on the local situation. One thing he said was that no one would be leaving the FOB. If I could not leave the FOB, how could I look for rocks? The FOB is very flat and desolate place. When I look around, all I see is lots of dust, sand and miscellaneous leaverite limestone. All the river rock I saw reminded me of the river rock back home in the Texas Hill Country along the Guadalupe River, basic limestone. Not until I noticed some color did I take a closer look. All the rocks were very dirty and dusty, so to lick or spit. Heck, I pulled out my canteen to rinse them off, and to my surprise, I have struck the “Mother Load” of all collecting sites. What a place to have a field trip. And this brings us to the “Rock” portion of this report. But first a little background on the source of the rocks, the Tigris River.
The Tigris River starts her journey in the Taurus Mountains of southeast Turkey. It flows 1165 miles southeasterly into Iraq after briefly forming the extreme eastern portion of the border between Syria and Turkey. Once in Iraq, the Tigris zigzags slowly to the southeast, and its valley flattens and widens. There are at least five major tributaries that flow into the Tigris in Iraq. They are the Adhem, the Diyaleh, the Great Zab (Zab Ala), the Lesser Zab (Zab Asfal), and the Zakko or eastern Tigris. But only two of them, the Great Zab and the lesser Zab flow into the Tigris above Tikrit. As a result of these two major tributaries, and the melting snows from the Taurus Mountains in Turkey and the Elburz Mountains in far western Iran, the Tigris is more subject to major flooding than the Euphrates River. This produces a large amount of erosion from several locations, thus, the wide variety of rocks.
To date, I have found and identified Igneous, Sedimentary and Metamorphic rocks to include different Agates, Conglomerates, Fossils, possibly Jade, Jaspers, Lavas, Limestone’s, Petrified Woods, Quartzes and Quartzite’s. They range in a very wide variety of colors, from blacks to grays to whites, from greens, yellows, oranges, reds, maroons, purples to combinations of two or more colors in unique and unusual patterns. Some of the unusual rocks I have found include Astronomy Rocks, Diseased Rocks and Finger Rocks. Some of the unique ones I have found went through tremendous Tectonic Forces to create the beautiful and colorful artistic designs in them.
With the question of where they came from, one would have to explore the rivers to the north, with southeastern Turkey, extreme western Iran or extreme northern Iraq to choose from. But due to the geography and geology of Iraq and the border areas, I strongly suspect that at least 90% of the rocks washed down from Turkey. The other 10% probably came from extreme northern Iraq with maybe a trace from extreme western Iran.
So far, I’ve collected well over fifty pounds that I could easily place into over a half dozen categories. I have to limit myself, because at this rate, I’ll be one very overweight soldier returning home.
Back on the 18th of January, I found my first fossil near the helipad of our hospital, multiple “Gastropods” in a dark gray matrix. I took a S.W.A.G., (Scientific Wild Ass Guess) as to how old it is and I’m guessing about 150 million years old. And then on the 4th of February I found my second fossil, some “Fusulinids” in a tan matrix of different shapes and sizes. They range in size from about 1/16 of an inch to about 1/4 of an inch. Some long and skinny, some short and fat. Being an index fossil, they are at least 245 million years old. Being well formed, I suspect they are around 275 million years old. And the recently on the 2nd of March, I found a baby Trilobite in a light tan matrix. It is 3/4 of an inch long and a shape I have never seen before. With an average of one fossil per month and their scarcity, they must have traveled a very long distance.
Over these last three months, I’ve picked up several nicknames from my fellow soldiers since I’ve been here, Sergeant Rock Pockets, because the pants we wear have large cargo pockets on the sides and that’s where I carry my rocks. I’m also called the Rock Man, the Rock Doctor, Sergeant Rock, and probably my favorite, the Rock Warrior because if we are ever attacked, I’ve got plenty of rocks in my pockets to throw at the enemy.
So far, there are about a dozen other soldiers who have gotten “Hooked” on collecting the many different rocks around the FOB here. I guess they saw me with my head down looking at the ground and picken up some rocks. They ask what the heck I was doing. And when I explained to them… Now, almost a day doesn’t go by where someone will stop by and ask me about a rock they found. But to all Rockhound Cheechako’s, one must explain the difference between keeperites and leaverites.
Well folks, until next time… Happy Hunting and Safe Collecting.
And by the way, for yall folks who are wondering what the heck are Astronomy Rocks, Diseased Rocks and Finger Rocks are… Well, I have to have something to write about in my next report. And I will also be reporting on my trip down to the Persian Gulf country of Qatar and the rocks and fossil I found down there.