Digging the Past Event 2015

Today, I helped out with the Digging the Past event at the Falls of the Ohio State Park. The weather was nice. A lot of visitors showed up despite the main building being closed for renovations and there is so much construction in the area involving the new Ohio River bridge. The park employees estimated about 500 cars showed up with about 1,500 visitors. I did not see many fossils being found in the Silurian Period Waldron Shale pile (mostly brachiopods and one Trimerus trilobite pygidium). The Jeffersonville limestone pile was seeded so people were bringing me some Devonian brachiopods to ID and some corals. I did see some button corals from the Speed Limestone as well.

Mostly I stayed by the washing station of the mineral pile and identified fluorite, barite, calcite, and such mineral specimens. I saw a few nice cubed pieces of fluorite early on but no blue or green material. The biggest find I saw a piece of galena. Myself and the naturalist at the Falls have never seen a galena specimen in the pile so that was quite a rarity. Also someone found a nice purple fluorite piece on a orange matrix. I do not recall seeing the orange matrix before either.

I helped a fellow volunteer with some stability issues on flying his quadcopter but a park employee came over told me to stop flying as it was against the rules. So I learned something new today. As stated on the DNR web site, "Motor Driven Airborne Devices: Motor-driven airborne devices (RC airplanes) should be operated in designated areas only or with clearance from property management. Drones are not currently permitted on DNR properties."

All and all, it was a good day and hope the people attending had fun and learned something about fossils and minerals with their visit to the Falls of the Ohio State Park.

Digging the Past! Event at Falls of the Ohio State Park

Saturday was Digging the Past! A Celebration of Archaeology and Fossils Day at the Falls of the Ohio State Park in Clarksville, Indiana. It is an event that focuses on educational activities for public. I am not sure how many years I have been volunteering at this event but it is always a fun and educational event to attend. This year I got a lot of new scientific questions about minerals that I need to be ready to answer next year.

The fossil pile did not yield a lot of fossils but I did see a number of brachiopods people brought to me for identification. I saw a nice crinoid holdfast and beautiful Platystoma snail fossil with growth lines. The naturalist at the park showed me a Dawsonoceras cephalopod fossil someone left that was about 20 cm long. The Devonian fossil pile was stocked with lots of spirifer brachiopod fossils for visitors to take home. A number of trilobite and coral fragments could be found there as well.

The mineral pile was the usual big geology attraction. A number of visitors found flourite cube corners or cube clusters in purple, yellow, and bluish colors. The material is from a fluorite processing mill in southern Illinois that processed minerals from that area. Normally one sees four types of minerals: fluorite, barite, calcite, and sphalerite. The fluorite is usually purple, yellow or clear. Occasionally, green and blue fluorite will be found.

A persistent child collector found a nice pink-clear fluorite fragment.

Learn more at the Falls of the Ohio State Park web site:
http://fallsoftheohio.org/special_events.html

Fossils at San Gimignano Italy

My visit to Italy was mostly a vacation just to relax so I did not do much research to find museums or fossil/mineral sites to visit. I read that it is illegal to collect fossils in Italy and their museums have some odd schedules about being open. That said, I did keep my eyes open to geological features at places we stopped to visit. One town we spent a few hours at was San Gimignano, Italy.

One of the walls had a stone block that had some fossils in it. The fossil I could see was a small gastropod calcite fossil about 2 cm in diameter. The rest of the brown block had broken shell fragment fossils.

A nearby stone in the same wall had an interesting pattern on it. Could it be volcanic in origin?

Near the wall were olive trees, here is picture of some baby olives.

Here is a panoramic view from San Gimignano of the surrounding countryside:

I found a small shop that sold jeweler and some mineral and fossil specimens. It is called Mirone Alabastri (53037 San Gimignano, Firenze). The fossils they sold were ammonites found in Madagascar. I did find some mineral specimens from Italy there that seemed unique.

Here is a dark quartz crystal in matrix from the quarries at Monterigginoi near Siena. Learn more about the locality here: http://www.mindat.org/loc-125546.html

This green mineral might be malachite. The specimen was found at Serrabottini Massa Marittima in Grosseto Province of Tuscany Italy. Learn more about this locality here: http://www.mindat.org/loc-64651.html

These next set of images are of the specimen magnified under the microscope x23. Learn more about this locality's malachite here: http://www.mindat.org/gallery.php?cform_is_valid=1&loc=64651&min=2550&cf_pager_page=2

The last mineral picture is a piece of galena from unknown locality.

Earth Discovery Day - August 2013

Today was Earth Discovery Day at the Falls of the Ohio State Park in Clarksville, Indiana. It is an event that focuses on educational activities for public. I have been volunteering over the last several years and it is a good feeling helping young students learn more about the mineral world around them while teaching about the fossil world of the past. Even though I have been really busy teaching, it is good to help out at an event like this.

The fossil pile was sparse in finds this year but the mineral pile while very dusty was a mountain of exploration for those willing to search for buried mineral treasure. The material is from a fluorite processing mill in southern Illinois that processed minerals from that area. Normally one sees four types of minerals: fluorite, barite, calcite, and sphalerite. The fluorite is usually purple, yellow or clear. Occasionally, green and blue fluorite will be found. A child found a nice fluorite cube corner shown in the first picture above. It has some nice purple phantom cubes that show through when held up to a light source.

Another child found a greenish-blue fluorite fragment while another found several aqua blue fluorite pieces. My challenge to visitors is to find pieces like this and usually about 4-6 specimens are found during my volunteer shift.

I was also told some material from China was processed there as well. So I am not sure what that might look like. A red or crimson colored rock was being found this year that was not seen in past years. It might be something from China. It is thought to be some type of reddish fluorite.

Fossils found were a number of brachiopods, corals, and snails from the Devonian fossil pile. The Silurian pile was being a bit more stingy. It did yield some nice brachiopods, a trilobite fragment, and a cephalopod fossil. Silurian Period Waldron Shale fossils are as shown: probably the tail (pygidium) of an Arctinurus sp. trilobite (I think it is upside down), next a fragment of a shell of a Dawsonoceras cephalopod, third is the index fossil of the Waldron Shale Eucalyptocrinus crassus crinoid calyx cup, and last an uncompressed Leptaena sp. brachiopod that has Cornulites sp. worm tubes on it.

Pyrite of the Waldron Shale

 Pyrite crystals found in the Waldron Shale of Clark County Indiana. It is from the Silurian Period.

Calcite Filled Platystrophia Brachiopod

These images are of a broken open Platystrophia sp. brachiopod fossil. The picture reveals calcite crystals. This fossil was found in Bullitt County, Kentucky in Ordovician Period rock.

Langite? from the Cornwall Mine

If the label is correct, this is a rare mineral (for this locality) called langite found at the Cornwall Mine in Lebanon County, Pennsylvania, USA. Ironically, the type locality for langite is in Cornwall, England. The Pennsylvania mine was named back in the 1700s by a man whose family was from that area of England.Why am somewhat skeptical of this identification is I thought langite was more blue than green in color while this one looks really green compared to other langite specimen images I see on the Internet..

This specimen appears to be composed of both magnetite and langite. Learn more about mineral on wikipedia.org.

As to where the specimen came from, my friend Milt Leet was mining engineer at the mine in the 1960s till it closed in 1973. The mine was owned by Bethelham Steel and they were a major employer at Cornwall. The American economy was not great in the early 1970s and there was an oversupply of iron ore. Most of the mines ore deposits had been tapped that were economically viable and it was thought the mine would be closed by 1980. In 1973 Hurricane Agnes visited the state and brought massive rainfalls. The storm knocked out power to the pumps at the mine and as a result the shafts flooded. This event proved to be the key point to closing the mine for good.

I finished reading a book called Cornwall The People and Culture of an Industrial Camelot 1890-1980 by Carl Oblinger. The book is an eye opening set of remembrances of a time in American long past. The stories related are of an American time period when corporations were more paternalistic and the standard of living in the United States was quite low. Watching the news one can hear about how the economy is bad in the United States right now but if you read this book about how things were in the 1920s and 1930s in a this Pennsylvania mining area, we are in great shape. No running water or electricity, limited transportation, food selection limited to the growing seasons and what could be preserved during the winter are just some of the factors the population had to contend with less than 100 years ago. The book also sheds light on the blending of different nationalities as the immigrated to the country to work in the mining sector.

Earth Discovery Day 2012

The Falls of the Ohio State Park (Clarksville, Indiana, USA) hosted a geology education day with lots of activities the general public around the Louisville, Kentucky area could participate in. My contribution to the event was helping with identification of minerals and fossils being found in the collecting piles. I have been participating in events like this at the state park for the last 3 years.

This year was nice as a mix of adults and students visited the piles next to the main parking lot. Some visitors were from geology clubs in Illinois and Fort Wayne, Indiana. It was a nice weather and the visitors seemed enthused about the collecting and learning about minerals and fossils.
Inside the Interpretive Center a number of tables were set up showing micro-minerals and fossils, 12 mineral/fossil specimens for a $1, books by local geology professors, and fossil identifications. Also a number of talks were given by local experts and teachers on geological subjects.

I stayed on my shift a lot longer than planned since a lot of people had questions. Most questions were about minerals but I had some fossil questions dealing with Devonian corals and Silurian brachiopods. Fossil collecting was sparse as the piles were not yielding very many fossils. See picture of the only fossils I saw collected by a fossil enthusiast from Marion, Indiana. He found two Eucalyptocrinus crinoid cups plus some nice brachiopods. All the fossils had to be extracted from a large matrix piece.

The mineral pile was getting the most activity with tons of material from southern Illinois mine tailings. Yellow and purple fluorite was the most prevalent though clear was found as well. My challenge to the visitors was to find the blue and green fluorite specimens and at least 6 people found blue transparent/semi-transparent minerals. See picture below on a blue one. A couple of kids found small green fluorite crystals. So that was fun to see! Other minerals being found were calcite, sphalerite, barite, and pyrite.

A number of college groups seemed to be visiting, I did not get any school names but here is a picture of what appears to be a school group meeting on the fossil bed.

Pennsylvania's Cornwall Mine Magnetite

The Cornwall Mine of Lebanon County Pennslyvania, USA was one of the largest iron ore producers in the eastern United States. Opened in 1732 and operated until the early 1970s the mine is estimated to have produced over 100 million tons or ore. In addition, over 60,000 ounces of gold and 400,000 ounces of silver were processed. In June 1972, Hurricane Agnes knocked out the power at the mine thus rendering the pumps unusable. The rains the storm brought flooded the mine shafts and Bethelem Steel decided to close the mines after that.

Micro-mineral specimen of magnetite from the mine. Collected by Milt Leet who was a mining engineer there till mine closed. The book Mineral Collecting in Pennsylvania by Davis M. Lapham and Alan R. Geyer (Pennsylvania Geological Survey 3rd Ed. 1969) describes magnetite found at the mine as "octahedrons, dodecahedrons, plates, massive in ore and along top surface of diabase in small crystals". (page 108)

mindat.org lists 69 different types of minerals found at this mining locality.

Fluorite? in the Lexington Limestone

I make no claims as to being a mineral expert but I believe these specimens are fluorite mixed with calcite or some other mineral (dolomite?). They were found with Cyclonema sp. snail fossils in Franklin County, Kentucky. The layer should be the Lexington Limestone of the Ordovician Period.

The majority of the fluorite is yellow but one has a small section of purple. I find it unique as typically think of the fluorite areas of the state of Kentucky to the western part near southern Illinois.

Mindat.org lists fluorite, calcite, and dolomite as all being found in Franklin County, Kentucky.

Science on the Edge: Radical Innovation in New Harmony

The Indiana State Museum (Indianapolis) is hosting a temporary exhibit entitled Science on the Edge: Radical Innovation in New Harmony from March 24 through October 28, 2012. The exhibit will highlight the scientists who participated in the grand Utopian experiment at New Harmony, Indiana in the mid-1820s till the 1830s. Learn more at their web site.

My interest in this exhibit is of a more direct nature, as I was the one who prepared the mineral specimen loan to the Indiana State Museum from the Louisville Science Center from the historic Gerard Troost mineral collection (1811-1850). Dr. Troost was a scientist who with his family lived in New Harmony, Indiana in 1825-1826. He and the French naturalist Charles-Alexandre Lesueur left from New Harmony in 1826 and explored parts of southern Illinois and eastern Missouri. This trip provided a number of mineral specimens like fluorite from Illinois and galena (lead) from Missouri.

New Harmony attracted scientists like William Maclure, Thomas Say, and Robert Owen whose sons later became well known geologists. The mineral pictures in this posting are a yellow fluorite from Europe, troostite (var. Willemite) from Franklin, New Jersey, and a malachite/azurite specimen.

Polished Slabs at Carnegie Museum

To begin 2012, a tack away from fossils will be taken temporarily for some geological eye candy. The Hillman Hall of Minerals of Gems at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History has a beautiful display of illuminated mineral slices. This posting shows just a few so you will need to visit Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in person to truly appreciate the beauty of these specimens. The first is an agate and amethyst piece from Brazil. Followed by another Brazilian piece of "bullseye" agate.

This next is is of a cross section of fire opal from Mexico.

This multi-shaded purple specimen is a piece of rhodochrosite from Argentina.

The following image is of an agate from Brazil.

This next picture is of a nephrite jade found in New Zealand.

The last image is of liddicoatite from Madagascar.