Although we have not yet seen any white stuff in the air, or even had a frost in most of our region, it appears it is time to announce the closure of our field season and start thinking about next year.  Our trips in 2014 are listed on the webpage, but for a quick summary, how about these numbers!

• We participated as a club in 21 field events between late March and mid-October.
• Eight trips were weekend or multi-day trips involving overnight stays (with two campouts).
• Although the majority was in search of minerals, we had 7 trips targeting fossils.
• We ventured to St. Lawrence County 5 times and to Ontario, Canada twice.

Several folks led individual trips this year, but our Field Trip Leader, Bill Chapman, planned and ran most of them.  Many thanks to Bill for a wonderful field season.

As for 2015, we have some ideas of new places to go and we will return to many of this year’s sites, but we would love to hear from you where you would like to go.  Anyone can lead a trip!

July has just ended and the field collecting season is about half over. Can you count the number of collecting trips the Wayne County Gem and Mineral Club has conducted or attended so far in 2014? Hint: you will need your toes.  If you visit our webpage (wcgmc.org) and link to the calendar page you can count them. In the first seven months of 2014 (and we did not start until late March) our club has taken part in 15 digs!  We did not plan every one of them:  the Penn-Dixie Expert Dig, the Penfield Open House, and the Sterling Hills Super Dig were outside functions.

Five of these digs involved overnight stays.  Two, including the recent 5 day adventure to the self-proclaimed “Mineral collecting capital of Canada” around Bancroft, Ontario, involved camping.  We’ve been to St. Lawrence County 3 times. We’ve been to Pennsylvania and New Jersey.  We’ve collected fossils in seven counties in New York and two in Pennsylvania.  We’ve explored the Precambrian in the Adirondacks and in Ontario, the Devonian and Silurian in western New York, and the Carboniferous in Pennsylvania. Continue reading WCGMC Field Season →

Mineral Musings in the January, 2014 WCGMC News:

Happy New Year:

Has everyone made their New Year’s Resolutions?   You know, the one’s you keep until you can’t anymore.   Here are mine:

1)  I resolve to attend as many rock, mineral, and fossil collecting trips with WCGMC as possible (that should be easy to keep).

2.  I resolve to clean up, organize, and label specimens from each trip before the next trip (now that would be a first for me).

3.  I resolve to lose 15 pounds during next year’s gardening and collecting season (I manage to do this most years).

4.  I resolve not to gain those pounds back during the hibernating/eating season that follows the summer (trouble is I fail this every year such that resolution #3 becomes necessary every year).

Maybe we should share resolutions at an upcoming club meeting?  Or the next time we are in the field.

Our fearless trip leader, Bill Chapman, tells us that one early trip will be April 1 with a visit to Ace of Diamonds in Herkimer.  I guess that is as fitting a day as any for folks with our hobby to be “hunting diamonds.”  Most of you are well acquainted with digging in the Cambrian dolostones of Herkimer County.  For me this will be a new treat.  I have been there once, but decades ago and only briefly.  I’ll be looking for a few 3 inch crystals on matrix that look like this !