SIGS Friday November 13, 2009 at 7:30 PM SHARP the general meeting
convenes in the basement meeting room of the Father Hicks Center
of St. Clare’s School, 151 Lindenwood Road, Staten Island, N.Y.
AGENDA President Janet Wasmuth will review the general club’s news,
reports from the members of the Board of Directors and committee
chairs, old and new business, program, raffle and refreshments.
PROGRAM The program of the November meeting is titled “The Geology of
Staten Island”. The slide presentation and lecture will be presented
by Professor Steve Okulewicz.
UP-COMING EVENTS
A field trip around Staten Island is sponsored by the Staten Island Geological
Society with Professor Steve Okulewicz leading the three hour tour on November
15, 2009. See page three for further details of the tour. Rock and mineral weekend at The Morris Museum Mineralogical Society on Saturday November 28th from 10 AM
to 5 PM and Sunday November 29th from 1-5 PM. Showing rare fossils, see fluorescent mineral displays or catch a guest lecture. Exhibitors with private collections and top mineral, gem and fossil displays will be on hand. Mineral Magic
with Dr. Steve Okulewicz. Admission is $10 for adults, $7.50 for seniors, students
and children, free for children under 3 and museum members.
PROGRAM FOR THE NOVEMBER MEETING
The Program for the November 13th meeting is titled “The Geology of
Staten Island” and will be presented by Professor Steve Okulewicz. Staten Island’s
mineralogy and geology are both interesting and unique. It is one of the few places
in New York City where metamorphic, igneous, and sedimentary rocks occur
together in a relatively small area.
Professor Steve Okulewicz will describe and show slides of the wide variety of
Minerals that can be readily found in their geologic environment on Staten Island.
This program will be followed on Sunday November 15th when Professor Steve
Okulecwicz will lead a short three hour field trip tour around Staten Island to
initiate our new and older members with the history of Staten Island.
THE GEOEXAMINER NOVEMBER 2009 PAGE TWO
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
We have six members who are celebrating their birthdays this month of
November, and to all of you, we wish a “HAPPY BIRTHDAY” and many more!
They are as follows:
November 06 -- Rev. Rhoda Thomas November 16—Guy Morvillo
November 17-- Michael Yareck November 17 – Audrey Hansen
November 19-- Evelyn Anagnostis November 29—Dorothy Hartje
REVIEW OF THE PROGRAM AT THE OCTOBER MEETING
The program for our October 9th meeting was a DVD/Video/Audio disc on loan from the Eastern Federation Program Library titled “Gemstones of America.”
The DVD reviewed a dozen gemstone mines across our country and explained how
gemstones are formed and how they are mined and crafted. Gemstone bearing
rock deposits are mineralogically unusual and are therefore rarely found. Potential
gemstone producing deposits can be explored in more detail, thus greatly increasing
the possibility of discovery.
The geologists often prefer to classify rock deposits according to the major
processes by which they are formed---igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic.
Petrology, the study of rocks has determined and described large numbers of
different kinds of rocks, all of them formed by one of these processes. When our
earth was young it was a ball of hot melted material consisting of one soup of
elements. Cooling by loss of heat into space, eventually began to have an effect
and the first cooled, solid rocks were formed called Igneous Rocks. Now and then
a quantity of this molten magma begins to move upward through the crust toward the surface, but pauses cooling slowly to form an enormous solid mass called a batholith. These last formed minerals tend to be in very coarse crystals, most of them gemstones. These crystalline deposits are called pegmatites found as quartz, feldspar, and mica. Most of the earth’s sediments are worthless as gemstone sources. Imagining the great pressure under a thousand feet of water, consider what is under a thousand feet of rock. There is always a danger of “rock bursts.” All such pressure and temperature transformed rocks are called metamorphic rocks. Sometimes they do bear gemstones.
For a gemstone to make the marvelous transition to a gem it must pass through considerable work at the hands of lapidary. This person will saw, grind and shape each piece of rocky material so that it achieves its maximum potential for beauty or salability. To draw attention to their beautiful color and pattern and prepare them to fit certain kinds of standard mountings, the cabochon cut was developed.
THE GEOEXAMINER NOVEMBER 2009 PAGE THREE
The finest and most expensive gemstones are almost always cut as faceted stones. The finished product of this process of a faceted stone can be defined best as a gem with a series of carefully placed, flat, reflecting faces. The choice of these faces and angles they hold to each other are sometimes determined by the nature of the gem material, by its characteristic refractive index.The program showed the different types of mining and how careful the miners must be so as not to damage the specimen. Marjorie Johnson shows in this month’s sketch how a miner cleans the specimen by putting it in his mouth to clean off the mud.
FIELD TRIP
Our club will sponsor a field trip to explore the geology of Staten Island
November 15th at 10 AM under the overpass of I-278 on Renwick Avenue by the Petriedes School (formerly the Sunnyside Campus of CSI.
THE GEOEXAMINER NOVEMBER 2009 PAGE FOUR
Participants should wear sturdy shoes, long pants, a hat and bring a lunch.
A limited number of free field trip guides will be available to explain the
geology of the areas. A small amount of walking is required over slightly
uneven terrain when you leave your car. We will visit the geology in the
stratigraphic order, beginning with the oldest and ending with the youngest
rocks. Starting with the serpentinite near Slosson Avenue, followed by
the diabase along Forest Avenue. Then to the remains of an exposure of the
clay pits in Kreisherville and have our lunch on the final stop on the beach
by the Conference House at the end of Hylan Blvd., to view the glacial
deposits. Specimen collection and questions are encouraged! Youngsters
and those not too young are invited to get a first hand understanding of how
geology works by observing the outcrops in the field before they are built
over.
SERVICE PROJECT
We will ask for a motion and a vote at the November meeting to
continue our service project, our seventeenth, to again contribute food
items for the needy. The food will be distributed by St. Clare’s St. Vincent
de Paul Society at Christmas time. In this year’s holiday we still have a
great need due to low employment, sickness and lack of finances. We
suggest the food items include canned goods such as fish, juices, vegetables,
meat and fruit. Boxes of noodles, pasta, stuffing, cereals, cookies and
crackers are all welcomed. Do not bring any food that requires
refrigeration or may spoil or get stale. Bring your gifts to the December llth
meeting and place them in or near the boxes marked ”FOOD FOR
DISTRIBUTION” which will be located in the rear of the room. Giving
In the Holiday Spirit and a project such as this will give happiness to the
“giver” as well as to the families who receive them and enjoy the food at
Christmas time.
MONTHLY RAFFLE
Thanks to all our members who donate items to the monthly raffle
and to all those who purchased tickets for the raffles. We always have a
nice array of articles. The receipts from the raffle are a big help to our
treasury. At the December 11th meeting we ask you to donate any Holiday
articles you have as prizes. We will purchase poinsettia plants to decorate
the refreshment table and move them to the raffle table as prizes.
THE GEOEXAMINER NOVEMBER 2009 PAGE FIVE
MEMBERSHIP DUES
We have now completed the second month of our new year of
2009-2010. We thank those members who paid their current dues. A
total of 34 members. Last year we had a paid membership of 50 which
leaves us, to date, a total of 16 members who have not paid dues. We are
in the process of starting a fund raising event, but last year our club had
a loss of almost $800. We must find a way to balance our budget. We will
Hi-Lite the name and address on your Geoexaminer label for the members
who may have forgotten to pay their dues. If your name is Hi-Lited, please
bring your membership form and check for $25. to the November meeting.
Give it to our treasurer or mail it to Bill Mirabello, 379 Ross Avenue, S.I.10306.
REFRESHMENTS COMMITTEE
The Club members enjoy the decorations that Marge Swier, chairperson, and the others in the refreshment committee display on the
refreshment table. Volunteers to help with the decorations are welcome.
The volunteers to furnish cakes and to help with the setting up and clean up
at the November 13th meeting are:
Bob Fleming Chandana Somgealatne
Diana Young Bernard Manzo
Margaret Robinson Chris Thompson
The current volunteers list is now depleted and at the November 13th meeting
we will ask for volunteers for each of the next two meetings on December 11th
and January 8th.
COST OF THE MONTHLY GEOEXAMINER
The executive board suggested a savings could be realized if we could
revise our mailing list distribution each month by reducing our 200 a month
copies using the third class bulk mail rate (non-profit) and cutting our
distribution to 50 dues paying membership and 50 retired members and
ex-officers – a total of 100 a month distribution using first class rate.
1. Third Class Rate
a. 200 pieces @12cts/ea. Postage =$24./mo. --$240./yr
b. 200 pieces @42cts/ea. Printing =$84./mo. ---$840./yr
c. US PS – annual fee =$18./mo ---$180./yr
$126./mo $1260./yr
GEOEXAMINER NOVEMBER 2009 PAGE SIX
2. First Class Rate
a. 100 pieces @44cts/ea Postage =$44./mo.----$440./yr
b. 100 pieces @42cts/ea Printing =$42./mo-----$420./yr
$86./mo ----$860./yr
Switching from third class bulk mail with 200 pieces distribution
(the minimum) costs our club $1260. per year and if not delivered, there
is no return mail to sender, and we don’t know if it was received. Since we
first used third class mail the cost has increased by 100 %. If we switch to
first class mail, we can have a distribution of 100 for $860. per year, a
saving of $400. Also undelivered newsletters will be returned and we can
delete those names from our mailing list. We will make the switch with the
January issue of our Geoexaminer. Anyone no longer on the distribution list
when it is reduced to 100, who wishes to continue getting the newsletter can do so for a donation of .89 cents per month or $8.00 per year to cover the cost.
2009 EFMLS WAYS AND MEANS RAFFLE
A few months ago our club voted to take $24.00 worth of chances for
the 2009 EFMLS Ways and Means drawing. The drawing was held during the awards banquet at the EFMLS 2009 Convention in Bristol, Connecticut in mid-October.
Our club won one of the prizes, a solitaire quartz pendant and chain which we will award as a door prize to a lucky winner at our November 13th
meeting.
Back
bravenet.com