KYANA Geological Society Annual Show 2011

Another good show to attend if you are in the Louisville, Kentucky area November 12-13, 2011. The gym of the Resurrection Lutheran Church was filled with tables selling minerals, jewelry, fossils, geology supplies, art, and holiday gifts.

The main display attraction is a set of fluorescent minerals presented by Danny Settles of Danville, Kentucky. He had three custom cases with shortwave, midwave, and longwave UV fluorescent minerals. The cases were contained in a black curtain area with an illuminated green light button.  Once the viewer pressed the button, the incandescent lights turned off the UV lights switched on.  As Danny explained to me, the lights were custom made with a preheating system to extend the bulb life and cooling fans to keep the bulbs from getting too hot.  After a fixed amount of time the UV lights power off and the white light returns.

The longwave UV case had Weardale, England fluorite (blue-purple), North Carolina opal (green), Canada sodalite (orange), and I think fluorite China and Ohio. Not as familiar with midwave specimens but the red one is from Iran. Shortwave UV specimens are of course dominated by Franklin/Sterling Hill, New Jersey.

Another display case had a very interesting knife with what looks to be an agate handle and meteorite iron blade. The next picture shows what appear to be cut and polished Kentucky agate specimens.

I met a number of friendly dealers and members of the KYANA Geological Society of which I belong. Since I also maintain the web site I tried extra hard this year to get names of people and companies whose material was at the show I was taking pictures of.  Unfortunately, I ran out of time and did not get to see every table at the show but the following is a sampling of people I visited with.

Two dealers I do not believe I encountered before were nice enough to chat with me. John LaMont traveled to Louisville from Brookville, Indiana and runs Lamont's Rock Pile (Jewelry, Carvings, Fossils, Slabs, Cabs, Misc.).  He had some appropriate carving of horses which I thought were very nice. Also on display were a parrot and eagle. In addition, he had a variety of Ordovician trilobites from Ohio (Flexicalymene), fish from Wyoming, ammonites from Madagascar, cephalopods from Morocco, and trilobites from Utah.

A dealer I believe is new to the Louisville show but a veteran of show circuit is Mark Palatas. He had a large selection of Paleozoic shark teeth.  In addition, a good selection of Waldron Shale fossils which I enjoy studying. The following pictures of the Indiana crinoid calyx and Paciphacops Oklahoma trilobites also below to him.

I encountered long time KYANA member and dealer Bob Robinson selling polished spheres and slabs.

Long time mineral and fossil dealer Alan Goldstein had some very nice iridescent pyrite specimens from Kentucky for sale.

Panoramic image of the show floor taken 11-11-11.

So if you are looking for a holiday gift or want to increase your geological collection, visit the show.  Admission and parking are free. Learn more at the KYANA Geological Society web site: http://www.kyanageo.org/showflier.htm




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KYANA Geological Society Show 2010 Pictures

A very nice show this year with an observed good size crowd.  The Ben E. Clement Mineral Museum display was great with Ben Clement's son hosting the display.  My pictures of specimens from the show are limited to minerals.  The tables I looked at had trilobite fossils from Morocco and fish from the Green River Formation.  I saw some Ordovician trilobites as well.  Lots of jewelry, polished rocks, and mineral specimens were on display.

This next picture is of a malachite with azurite specimen collected in Namibia, Africa.  A very friendly dealer let me take its picture.  A mistake by me in not getting his contact information.  His mineral specimens were very nice.

These last two pictures show specimens from the Ben E. Clement Mineral Museum display.  Mr. Clement was very kind in letting me take pictures and informative in describing fluorite.  Fluorite is known for is use as a flux in steel making, production of hydrofluoric acid, and fluorine for dental use.  One aspect that is probably not known is its use in American nuclear weapons production.  During World War II, the mines were getting orders for fluorite that was being shipped to Oak Ridge Tennessee.  It was thought to be for steel production but it was being used for production of uranium 235 and plutonium 238.

The picture above is of a fluorescent mineral from Franklin, New Jersey illuminated with UV light.

This last picture is of purple fluorite.  Learn more about the museum and its activities: http://www.clementmineralmuseum.org

KYANA Geological Society Show 2010

If you are near the Louisville, Kentucky area this weekend (November 12-24, 2010) consider visiting the KYANA Geological Society Mineral, Gem, & Fossil Show.  Pictures shown in this post are from the 2009 event.  It is held at a church's gym with a number of dealers selling polished rocks, jewelry, minerals, fossils, and toys.  Admission is free as is parking.  The featured exhibit will be minerals from the Ben E. Clement Mineral Museum of Marion, Kentucky.

Learn more at this web page: http://www.kyanageo.org/showflier.htm

I am a member of KYANA Geological Society and also Cincinnati's Dry Dredgers though I do not attend meetings very often at either group.  Last year, I created an Ordovician fossil display for the show.  It was designed for the general public being the main audience.  In retrospect, if I designed a display again I would obtain the case to assemble the fossils in ahead of time.  Improvements would be: to attach the display cards at better viewing angles, attach cloth to stands so there are no wrinkles, and use fluorescent lights instead incandescent.

Ordovician Display at Fossil Show

Here are some pictures from the KYANA Geological Society show going on November 13-15, 2009. See the website for more information. This is a case I populated with "Fossils of the Ordovician Sea". The design idea was to make a water and sand color look with the fossils populating different levels of the simulated sea floor. My issue was I did not have access to the case so I did not have chance to set up a blue background. If I participate in this show next year I will either make my own display case or create inserts ahead of time. Also the beige color of the bottom cloth does not provide enough contrast for some of the fossils.

There is front cover that goes over the display and a lot of the white space visible in this picture disappears from view. These pictures were taken as I was setting up the display. The lighting is provided by two 100 W incandescent bulbs.

I made a small display for the brachiopods. My goal of the entire display was simplicity by having just a few samples of each fossil with a short description & graphic. The general public will be the main viewer of this material so I was expecting not a lot of background knowledge of the subject and short amount of time to view the display.

Here are some bryozoans and trilobites. I used Fresnel len magnifiers to enlarge some of the smaller fossils in the case. Modeling clay was used to make stands to position the magnifier as well as prop up the display signs.


This is a picture of Dracorex hogwartsia dinosaur that was loaned by The Children's Museum of Indianapolis. It was a lot smaller than I thought after seeing it in person. The skull is just a replica and kept in some sort transparent case.

A Good Reason to Join KYANA Geological Society

We did a little house cleaning and the USB Kodak transfer cable was found in a drawer. I have been looking for this cable for about a year because the some pictures from a geology field trip was stored in the Kodak digital camera's internal memory. So these pictures were taken in April 2008 as KYANA Geological Society had their quarry field trip into a local quarry located in Clark County, Indiana. The area of the quarry we went to that day was full of Devonian fossils (horn corals, colonial corals, byrozoans, Phacops trilobites, button corals, gastropods, and other fossils). We also found geodes and pyrite in the New Albany Shale layer.

Our society gets to collect there because we have group insurance and are conscious about safety. Hopefully, our quarry trips will begin soon now that the weather is warming up.

Halysites or Chain Coral

Here is a piece of halysite or chain coral from the Silurian period. I saw this it the last KYANA fossil study group.