Hard Rock News. Club website: kmgs.org. Message from our president. The June meeting will be held on Friday, June 10th at 7:00 PM.

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1 K i t s a p M i n e r a l a n d G e m S o c i e t y June 2016 The June meeting will be held on Friday, June 10th at 7:00 PM. Everyone is welcome, including members, member guests, and visitors. We meet at the Chico Alliance Church Daycare (entrance in the back). Address: 3670 Chico Way NW, Bremerton, Washington. Elected Officers for 2016 President: Tony Schackmann (360) werockon@inlandnet.com Vice President: Linden Richter (360) linden34@yahoo.com Secretary: Danielle Foss (360) dandefoss@outlook.com Treasurer: Caroline Richter (360) carolynrichter2@gmail.com Club website: kmgs.org (This site contains backissues of this newsletter) Celebrating 75 Years! Hard Rock News KMGS since 1939 Message from our president Oh, happy days! June has arrived members and friends. It s nearly the beginning of summer, with the ending of spring and yet we still have cold mornings and long days. Scheduling family outings with field trips or other community festivities is always a challenge based on the weather. Since the rain will be warmer this time of year, just pack a few extra clothes so you can be dry for your return to camp or Tony Schackmann home. That being said, options would be to make camp/bonfire to stand by to get warm and dry while singing a song or two as the night winds down. The end of May has many events, and celebrations honoring service members who sacrificed their lives. Thanks to the many members that gave their time in the service. Thanks also to those participated in the Armed Forces Day parades and all who supported our service members. This news bulletin may not be distributed by Memorial weekend. However, I still want to remind and ask everyone to please be safe this time of year. A couple of months ago we took a survey about our club and requested suggestions for improvement. The membership has spoken through the survey that they would like a place to do lapidary work, so we need someone to head up this effort. The person to chair this effort would schedule and make arrangements for the lapidary shop use. This of course would be contingent upon there being enough members willing to share their machines and time with those members that want to participate. The Sunnyslope Improvement Association facility is a possible location unless someone else has another suggestion. We have also discussed the possibility of buying a trailer for a lapidary shop. Thanks to the Scholarship Committee for their efforts in reviewing the applications submitted and determining the recipient for the KMGS scholarship award. Wilma Eads will try to have the recipient attend one of our meetings or our picnic. Please see Wilma s article at the bottom of page 5. The club could use some more people to assist in the mentoring programs, committee jobs, and work parties. These are opportunities for older members to meet new or perspective members and help encourage new members, who would like to expand their knowledge or expertise in a certain aspect of the hobby. Gordy Eslava & David Reimers stated everything is on track for this year s November show scheduled for Nov. 19 th & 20 th. Mark your calendars (continued on page 5)

2 JUNE 2016 HARD ROCK NEWS KMGS welcomes five more new members Program for June Meeting Dan Ice will present a slide show on the Museum of Natural History. PAGE 2 Since our last Hard Rock News issue, we have added five new (or returning) members. They are: Pearl LeBoeuf, Wes and Kevin Karry*, Charlie Goller, and Crystal Morris. Welcome to each of you! *Wes and Kevin presented an excellent program on gold panning/processing at our last meeting. Wes owns West Coast Mining Supply at 724 Lebo Blvd, East Bremerton (in Sheridan Village). He gives a 10% discount to KMGS members. editor Display Table for June Linden Richter There will be a display (show and tell) table at the June meeting. The theme for this month will be amber (see page 6 for information about amber). You may also bring any other mineral, fossil, or lapidary related item that you would be willing to show others and talk about. Juniors are encouraged to participate in this part of the meeting. Juniors Garry Mahan Hi Junior Rock Hounds! We will not have a Juniors meeting in June. I hope to see you in July at the KMGS picnic and in August at the Kitsap County Fair at the KMGS booth! Have a great summer and we will see you in the fall. We are planning to do a series of meetings on rocks of Washington when we resume in September. Sincerely, Kathy Reimers, Bobbie Sack and Jill Wetzel, Juniors Leaders Thought for the day (Submitted by Lorene Leider) Diamonds are nothing more than chunks of coal that stuck to their jobs. Malcolm S. Forbes ( ) Publisher June BONNEY LAKE, WASHINGTON: Annual show; Puyallup Valley Gem and Mineral Club, Swiss Park; th Avenue East; Fri. 10-5, Sat. 10-5, Sun. 10-5; Free Admission ; A Rockhound's dream come true! Beautiful displays, fossils, rare minerals, healing stones, lapidary demonstrations, club sales, silent auctions, kids activities, local & out of town vendors, raffle, drawing on Sunday, hourly door prizes. ; contact Nancy LeMay, PVGMC Club Show, PO Box 134, Puyallup, WA 98371, (253) ; bees2knees@att.net; Web site: puyallupgemclub.org

3 JUNE 2016 HARD ROCK NEWS PAGE 3 KMGS May meeting minutes 2016 Linden Richter, our vice president, called the meeting to order and Wilma Eads introduced the guests. Welcome to all the guests and thanks for coming! We hope you enjoy the night and we hope you ve come to stay. There are a few announcements from the last auction, and then it s time for the show and tell with Garry. Pat Jolly starts us off with a neat educational box she bought with examples of fossils. She purchased it from a gentlemen on one of her Facebook groups. Facebook is a great place to connect with other rockhounds and enthusiasts. Jack Eads brought a couple of beautiful pendants that he s auctioning off for the club that Danielle Foss, secretary missed the auction last month. Vangie brought a variety of thunder eggs with neat pictures in them! She has an example from Texas as well as Central Oregon and others. Bryan, our past president has some tourmaline with calcite and other minerals, which is a pretty pink with some really neat inclusions. Jim has some lovely fluorescent amber that will glow under a black light. Very interesting! Dean went for the first time to the Tucson show and brought back some information about the show and some brochures for anyone interested in taking a look. He also has a gastrolith from the belly of a dinosaur! Garry has some large thunder eggs, one from the lucky strike claim, Succor Creek with 3 yokes, and a nice one from Mexico with amethyst. Great show and tell as usual! Thanks to everyone that brought something fun and beautiful to share. Now for the announcements and updates. Jack Eads had a rock talk with 3 rd graders in Manchester and had a great time. Garry had a rock talk with home-schoolers at his house. He included some pictures in the last newsletter. The kids had a great time picking rocks out of the driveway like a treasure hunt. These talks are always a great way to get kids interested in geology! The chair persons report various announcements, cheer, field trips, county fair, and others. Be sure to attend meetings so you don t miss last minute information. Doug reports for the county fair that he needs displays and volunteers. Don t miss it! It s a chance to interact with people from the community and share fun information about our hobby, as well as a recruiting opportunity for new folks to join the club. Pat Jolly went to the meeting about the Greenwater area closure. Three options were presented to the community. Maintaining the area is proving difficult due to lack of budget and funds for all the roads. The plan will be to close a large number of roads, but the team will allow for public comment and requests for leaving a small number of the access roads open to allow Tribal and public access to the land. The management team cannot keep up with all the work on the roads each year in the Greenwater area, and they intend to downsize significantly by destroying the roads. Comments close May 27 th. This area is a multipurpose use area for the public for mineral collecting, hiking, horseback riding, etc. We need to continue to participate and be a voice to the community about these closures or we will continue to lose our mineral collecting areas. Break time. The program tonight is on gold mining by West Coast Mining Supplies, which sells backpacking equipment, survival food, and various other outdoors items from their store in Bremerton. Their focus is on gold panning and they are active members in the local gold panning club. They have equipment for demonstrating gold panning and a discussion on claims in the area. They brought a gold wheel called a Gold Genie, which is a powered setup to take some of the work out of panning. It s a pretty nifty contraption! The club got to take a look at a great sampling of their merchandise including metal detectors of all kinds, backpacks, books, pans and so much more! Be sure to check out their shop on Lebo Blvd. in Bremerton right near the Harrison Hospital. It was a great meeting as usual and very informative on gold panning. Always stay tuned for more field trips and info on the club Facebook page as well as the newsletters. That s all for now! Your Secretary, Danielle Foss

4 JUNE 2016 HARD ROCK NEWS Refreshments for June PAGE 4 We rely on our club members to provide snacks for our General Meetings. For this month: If your last name begins with T thru Z you will be responsible for bringing refreshments to the June meeting. We encourage finger food that can be placed on a napkin. We also encourage healthy snacks as well as those yummy treats that we are all used to having at the meeting! The club provides the beverages. Remember that when it is your month to bring refreshments, you need to plan to help with set-up and clean-up in the kitchen for that meeting. Any questions you may have can be addressed to Karen Eslava, our Refreshment chairperson. Year s Schedule: A thru B Sept C thru D Oct E thru F Nov G thru H Jan I thru L - Feb M March N thru R April S May T thru Z = June JUNE BIRTHSTONES June counts three gems as birthstones: pearl, Alexandrite, and moonstone. Pearl: For centuries, pearls have been used as an adornment., and were one of the favorite gem materials of the Roman Empire. Later in Tudor England, the 1500s were known as the pearl age. Pearls are unique as they are the only gems from living sea creatures and require no faceting or polishing to reveal their natural beauty. In the early 1900s, the first successful commercial culturing of round saltwater pearls began. Since the 1920s, cultured pearls have almost completely replaced natural pearls in the market. Alexandrite: A relatively modern gem, Alexandrite, was first discovered in Russia in 1831 during the reign of its namesake, Czar Alexander II, and is an extremely rare chrysoberyl with chameleon-like qualities. Its color is a lovely green in both daylight and fluorescent light; it changes color to a purplish red in incandescent light. Due to its rarity, some jewelers stock synthetic versions of this enchanting gemstone. (Synthetic gemstones are man-made alternatives to the natural material, possessing the same physical, optical, and chemical properties as the natural gemstone.) Moonstone: The third birthstone for June is the moonstone. It was given its name by the Roman natural historian Pliny, who wrote that moonstone's appearance altered with the phases of the moon a belief that held until well after the sixteenth century. A phenomenal gemstone, moonstones show a floating play of light (called adularescence) and sometimes show either a multi-rayed star or a cat's eye. Considered a sacred stone in India, moonstones often are displayed on a background of yellow (a sacred color) and are believed to encapsulate within the stone a spirit whose purpose is to bring good fortune. Part of the family of minerals called feldspar, moonstone occurs in many igneous and metamorphic rocks and comes in a variety of colors such as green, blue, peach, and champagne. The most prized moonstones are from Sri Lanka; India, Australia, the United States, Myanmar, and Madagascar are also sources.

5 JUNE 2016 HARD ROCK NEWS PAGE 5 President s Message - continued from page 1 and standby for details, items, ideas and suggestions from lessons learned from previous years. The Kitsap County Fair is August 24 th through the 28th, Doug Leider mentions the fair nearly every month for those that would enjoy participating and joining in on the fun He continues to request signups for show cases, watch standers & volunteers. He would like to have the sign-up sheets completed by this month to turn into the fair committee so they can get the tickets to distribute to the gracious volunteer s. Please keep in mind that displaying your specimens at the fair is a good way to start off displaying your material and then you can move into the November show. We don t have competitive cases at the November show, but it would be nice to get someone interested in display case competition to display in the AFMS/NFMS shows. I recommend everyone look at the KMGS website that Jack Eads has maintained for many years. For the new kids on the block, there is the club Facebook maintained by Gordy Eslava. Until the month of July at Raab park for our annual picnic keep on rockin & rollin and digging. Let me also remind everyone to keep those tumblers going and keep making preparations for the county fair and the November show all year round. As president, I look forward to working with all of you. Thanks for your confidence in me. I ll do my best as sworn Sincerely, Tony Schackmann KMGS Beaders Three rock club beaders met at Michael's crafts and worked on projects and Bobby Bee brought a guest from Oregon who worked on counted cross stitch. Bobby showed her vintage doll clothes she made and has them on display at the Silverdale mall at the Unique Boutique. Donna Ballard is preparing to do an advanced beading class in July. Next meeting will be June 16th from 1-3:30pm. Bring what ever rock club project you re working on and socialize. Beads, wire wrap, mosaic, whatever to stimulate interest and get others invited to an event that stirs their creativity and interest in learning more about being a member of the rock club. Thanks, ViQ'TREE Vangie s wire wrapping workshop There will be no more wire wrapping workshops until after summer. This is a busy time for all and Vangie usually takes a break each year at this time. The next date for a workshop will be announced in this newsletter, KMGS 2016 scholarship winner is announced The KMGS' Scholarship Committee met and chose a scholarship winner. Her name is Kimberly Hutchinson and she plans to study geology at Olympic College. Her future goal is to be a geologic researcher or teacher. She is an Olympic High School Senior gradating on June 10th. Congratulations, Kimberly! A second winner was initially chosen but could not qualify because of residence. In order to qualify for the KMGS scholarship you must be a local resident and he was not local. Wilma Eads, Scholarship committee chair

6 JUNE 2016 HARD ROCK NEWS PAGE 6 An ant inside Baltic amber Jewelry made of amber Amber - What do you know about it? Amber is fossilized tree resin (not sap), which has been appreciated for its color and natural beauty since Neolithic times. Much valued from antiquity to the present as a gemstone, amber is made into a variety of decorative objects. Amber is used as an ingredient in perfumes, as a healing agent in folk medicine, and as jewelry. There are five classes of amber, defined on the basis of their chemical constituents. Because it originates as a soft, sticky tree resin, amber sometimes contains animal and plant material as inclusions. Amber occurring in coal seams is also called resinite, and the term ambrite is applied to that found specifically within New Zealand coal seams. The Amber Room, shown at upper The Amber Room (Russia) was reconstructed using new amber from Kaliningrad right, is a world-famous chamber decorated in amber panels backed with gold leaf and mirrors, located in the Catherine Palace of Tsarskoye Selo near Saint Petersburg, Russia. Originally constructed in the 18th century in Prussia, the Amber Room disappeared during World War II and was recreated in Before the room was lost, it was considered an "Eighth Wonder of the World". (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) The Palanga Amber Museum near the Baltic Sea in Palanga, Lithuania, is a branch of the Lithuanian Art Museum. It is housed in the restored 19th-century Tiškevičiai Palace and is surrounded by the Palanga Botanical Garden. The museum's collection of amber comprises about 28,000 pieces, of which about 15,000 contain inclusions of insects, spiders, or plants. [1] About 4,500 pieces of amber are exhibited; many of these are items of artwork and jewelry. The museum holds Europe's third One of the largest amber pieces in Europe, the Amber Sun or Sun Stone, exhibited in the museum largest amber specimen, the "Sun Stone", of size 210x190x150 mm and weighing 3,526 grams, which has been stolen twice Working amber: Amber can be cut, scraped, sawn, drilled, sanded, filed carved. It is always best to practice on some rough chunks before starting to work on a valuable piece. Like all manual arts, working with amber requires getting the "feel" of the material in order to get good results. (See more at Rough (raw) amber Treatment: The Vienna amber factories, which use pale amber to manufacture pipes and other smoking tools, turn it on a lathe and polish it with whitening and water or with rotten stone (also known as Tripoli) and oil. The final luster is given by friction with flannel. When gradually heated in an oil-bath, amber becomes soft and flexible. Two pieces of amber may be united by smearing the surfaces with linseed oil, heating them, and then pressing them together while hot. Cloudy amber may be clarified in an oil-bath, as the oil fills the numerous pores to which the turbidity is due. Small fragments, formerly thrown away or used only for varnish, are now used on a large scale in the formation of "ambroid" or "pressed amber". The pieces are carefully heated with exclusion of air and then compressed into a uniform mass by intense hydraulic pressure, the softened amber being forced through holes in a metal plate. The product is extensively used for the production of cheap jewelry and articles for smoking. This pressed amber yields brilliant interference colors in polarized light. Amber has often been imitated by other resins like copal and kauri gum, as well as by celluloid and even glass. Baltic amber is sometimes colored artificially, but also called "true amber".

7 JUNE 2016 HARD ROCK NEWS PAGE 7 KMGS membership notes Membership dues are $10.00 per ADULT, $20.00 per FAMILY, $3.00 per JUNIOR members. All club dues are due in January OF EACH YEAR. If you want a hard copy of the newsletter, please add $6 to the above amount to cover the cost of printing and mailing. An online membership application form can be found on our website, kmgs.org. Dues can be paid to our Membership chair, Evah Summers at the monthly club meetings or mailed in to: KMGS at P O Box 3342 Silverdale, WA or Evah Summers at 4691 NE Minder Rd, Poulsbo, Appeal for a new membership person:: Due to the lack of response to my last request, I'm asking again for a person or persons who is interested in performing the duties of membership chairperson. No time like the present to step forward and help your club! Thanks, Evah Summers Field trip chair News Hey Field Trip Enthusiasts! The Crystal Mountain trip was cancelled due to crummy weather. We are rescheduling the trip for a weekend in June. More info will be at the next meeting. As always, give me a call if you have any questions! Danielle Foss, (360) Danielle Foss, Field trip chair Note to KMGS members: Our club is a member of the W ashington State Mineral Council. As such, we are entitled to participate in any of the WSMC - sanctioned field trips. Go to this site to check out upcoming WSMC field trips for 2016: Membership Evah Summers (360) summer9@aol.com KMGS 2015 CHAIRPERSONS Juniors Programs Kathy Reimers, Bobbie Sack, Jill Wetzel (360) dnkreimers@yahoo.com November Show Chairman Gordon Eslava (360) kmgs@q.com Refreshments Karen Eslava (360) feelgood@q.com Field Trips Danielle Foss (360) dandefoss@outlook.com Silent Auction Doug Leider (360) dougsrocks1@hotmail.com Display Table Garry Mahan (360) kmgs@wavecable.com Welcome Willma Eads (360) jacke@wavecable.com Raffle Table Mary Balderson (360) Cheer Kathy McClure (253) pogy2@centurytel.net Washington State Mineral Council Tony Schackmann (360) werockon@inlandnet.com KMGS Webmaster Jack Eads (360) jacke@wavecable.com Kitsap County Fair Doug Leider (360) dougsrocks1@hotmail.com KMGS Facebook Gordon Eslava (360) kmgs@q.com Education Jack Eads (360) jacke@wavecable.com KMGS Scholarship Historian KMGS Beaders Wire Wrapping Librarian Wilma Eads (360) jacke@wavecable.com Bobbie Sack (360) dsack@wavecable.com V. Keefer MBKeefer@aol.com Vangie Mayton (360) Bryan Tallman

8 JUNE 2016 HARD ROCK NEWS PAGE 8 DEVASTATING EXPLOITATION of PUBLIC LANDS - OAK FLAT COPPER MINE Sally & Emma - took the long walk. Planning and permitting is underway for a mining project by Resolution Copper Mining Co., a foreign mining giant The proposed site is near Superior, AZ known as Oak Flat (about 60 miles east of Phoenix). This new development has many concerned, including a mother and daughter who recently walked from Bainbridge Island, Washington to Arizona to let people know what s happening. What sparked their desire to make such a long walk? The way the land has been given to this foreign mining giant is troubling. The land, held in trust as public land and protected since 1955, was swapped for several parcels of overgrazed desert land. The swap-out did not pass Congress on its own merits despite multiple attempts and was eventually inserted into a U.S. military spending bill, the National Defense Authorization Act, in order to gain passage. Photo by David. E. Butler Resolution Copper is owned by BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto Mining Co. of Australia and London, U.K. This means the U. S. Forest Service is turning mining operations of U.S. minerals to foreign interests and profits. The proposed mine is on a tract of land which has a 2400-acre recreational area and campgrounds. Not only will this historical area be destroyed and gone forever, but the projected tailing pile will cover 7000 acres to a height of 500 ft. with toxic slurry after 40 years of mining. Roadways that will be affected by the operations will be FSR roads 2432, 2433, 2434, 315, 469, 229 and SR 24, 79, 88, 177 plus I-10. It s not clear the affect this will have on public access but it seems significant given planning information. The "Copper Triangle" is an area of 30 miles X 34 miles X 40 miles and the future expansion of mining operations seems a certainty. The scope of this operation will, without a doubt, prohibit public access and destroy the area for humans, animals, fowl, flora and fauna far into the future. Photo by Azanna Jeffrey Photo by Azanna Jeffrey This operation will restrict our public access and destroy public lands. We request you join the protest of this project. To submit your thoughts about Oak Flat to the Forest Service, your comments to: comments@resolutionmineeis.us. Or submit a comment through the website, or leave a voic at Further information can be found at Sally Noedel

9 JUNE 2016 QUICK CLOSE-UPS HARD ROCK NEWS Brad Smith s Bench Tips for June PAGE 9 Often when trying to get a close-up photo with your iphone or Android, you end up with a fuzzy, out-of-focus image. Next time try using your loupe over the camera lens. It works quickly and easily. LITTLE THINGS CAN BITE Most jewelers treat motorized equipment with caution. We've all heard stories about workpieces coming loose in the drill press or about getting long hair or clothing caught in the polishing machine. It stands to reason that a machine with a motor of a half horsepower or so is going to win out over its operator. We all know that, and I'm not going to harp on it. That's not the point of this story. I want to talk about the smaller motor powered machines we often use, the ones with little 3 inch diameter motors. For instance, these small motors are used in flex shafts and micro buffers. They're so small that many of us forget caution when using them. I'm guilty of it myself sometimes, and believe me it can get you in trouble. Here's what happened to two people I know. One friend had a polishing bur bend in the handpiece and then whack the thumb that was holding the workpiece was injured so badly that it seemed the bone might be broken. The swelling was substantial, and it took several weeks to regain normal use. A small underpowered motor? I don't think so. Another friend was using one of the small buffing machines, the kind you can stop when you apply too much pressure to the wheel. Not to worry about such an underpowered beast you say. Wrong, it literally jumped up and bit the hand that fed it! Buffer was set on a low table to do a quick polish, so was not mounted or clamped. A buff was installed on the right spindle, no buff on the left. Friend was wearing a tight-fitting, long-sleeved sweater. While buffing on the right wheel, the left tapered spindle caught a thread on the friend's left sleeve and started grabbing more and more threads and sleeve. Rather than pulling the arm into the machine, the light buffer quickly lifted off the table and started climbing up the underside of the friends arm. There was no way to get a hand on the on/off switch because the unit was spinning wildly and battering my friend like a club wielded by a mad man. Only when my friend could grab the gyrating power cord and yank it from the wall did the mayhem stop. So when you're in the shop, please think safety. Don't take even those little motors for granted. "Bench Tips for Jewelry Making" and "Broom Casting for Creative Jewelry" by Brad Smith are available on Amazon.

10 HARD ROCK NEWS PO Box 3342 Silverdale, Washington June 2016 TO: The Hard Rock News is the Official Publication of the Kitsap Mineral and Gem Society. Meetings are held at 7:00 PM on the second Friday of most months at Chico Alliance Church Daycare (entrance in the back). Address: 3670 Chico Way NW, Bremerton, Washington. The object of the Society is to provide a general dissemination of knowledge pertaining to the earth sciences; to sponsor regular meetings and field trips for the benefit of the membership and to be helpful along these general lines to one another. The Society is social and educational in character. Looking Forward to June and Beyond... Update Your Home Calendars! The KMGS potluck Picnic will be at Raab Park in Poulsbo on Saturday, July 9th, 2016, Noon to 4. The Kitsap County Fair is August 24th through the 28th. Please consider putting in a display case & helping out. Club website: kmgs.org Club Facebook page: Editor Contact Information: Garry Mahan kmgs@wavecable.com Phone: (360) Feel free to contact me if you want to put an announcement in the newsletter. Deadline for each newsletter is the 25th of the previous month.