PHILADELPHIA MINERALOGICAL

SOCIETY NEWSMay 2007

DUES REMINDERS

Dues are past due!……….There are a few of you left! Dues are $20 per year ($15 for Seniors). Just a reminder: Members with dues in arrears will not be able to participate in field trips. Please see Lee Tori at the next meeting or mail to: Lee Tori, P. O. Box 40, Holicong, Pa., 18928.Monthly Meeting, Thursday, May 10

The May meeting will be a discussion of Mineral Media. Topics to be presented by several club members will include mineral software, mineral books and magazines. Please feel free to bring any special media related item you would like to share with your fellow rockhounds.

Fun Things to Do: Mineral Shows, Special Programs, Field Trips…Field trips are open to paid members of the Philadelphia

Mineralogical Society. Everyone attending a field trip must read the Safety Rules and sign the waiver. The designated Field Trip Coordinator holds participants responsible for adhering to the collecting rules and field trip site rules.

PMS Field Trips

For all PMS field trips, you must call Merrill Dickinson, field trip coordinator at 610-473-9973 giving him at least 24 hours notice that you will be attending. He will give you directions to the meeting site. No late arrivals!

May

12 Burkholder Quarry in Ephrata, PA (7:30 am to 12:00 noon)More Information Inside

26 Silver Hill Quarry in Narvon, PA NW of Morgantown(7:30 am to 12:00 noon)More Information Inside

June

9 Kurtz Quarry in Denver, PA (7:30 am to 12:00 noon)

(Continued…)

The Philadelphia Mineralogical Society meets on the 2nd Thursday of each month (with the exception of July and August) at 7:30pm. The meeting location is Cathedral Village in the Andorra section of Philadelphia.

Contact Information:Officers:President: John Rateike..................215-576-0741Vice President: Bill Prince..............215-674-0738Secretary: Stan Molchanow............215-482-4015Treasurer: Lee Tori ........................215-794-0501

Show Chair:Karenne Snow.................................609-953-1987

Program Chair:.............................Doug Kleiger...................................610-971-0620

Field Trip Committee:Karenne Snow.................................609-953-1987Doug Kleiger...................................610-971-0620Merrill Dickinson............................610-473-9973

Fun Things to Do: Mineral Shows, Special Programs, Field Trips… Continued.

May

19-20 Leesport, PA39th annual show, "World of Gems and Minerals"; Berks Mineralogical Society; Leesport Farmers Market Banquet Hall, Rte. 61; Sat. 10-5, Sun. 10-4; tailgating Sat.; contact Jim Woodeshick, 246 State St., Hamburg, PA 19526; e-mail: brwoodpile@yahoo.com

June

2 Macungie, PA “Spring Mineralfest”; Pennsylvania Earth Sciences Association; Macungie Memorial Park, 50 Popular St.; Sat. 8:30-3; adults $2, children 12 and under free; minerals, fossils, crystals, gemstones, geodes, more than 100 tables, specimens for sale or trade, contemporary, classic and field-collected specimens, fluorescent minerals, gold panning and sluicing demonstrations, kids’ activities, free mineral specimens for children under 12; contact Vince Olsovsky, 531 Mickley Rd., Whitehall, PA 18052, (610) 439-2337; e-mail: mineralfest@verizon.net; Web site: www.mineralfest.com.

FIELD TRIP Report: Naceville Quarry. April 7, 2007

Easter Rock Hunt at Naceville MaterialsProbably one of the largest local club fieldtrips of recent memory took place in Bucks County one day before Easter. Early Saturday morning, April 7, thirty-five hardy rockhounds were waiting to enter Naceville Materials property. Largest contingent of the group was PESA members. Other clubs present with joint memberships were Philadelphia Mineralogical Society, Delaware Mineralogical Society and Central Pennsylvania Rock and Mineral.

Weather was cold. Temperatures were just above freezing with heavy cloud cover. None-the-less spirits of assembled rockhounds was high. After signing a club roster and H&K waivers a long caravan of twenty

vehicles moved carefully down the winding road into the quarry complex.

The first level explored provided some small crystalline epidote masses in veins and seams of sometimes heavily weathered diabase. Some members found early signs of azurite and malachite perhaps suggesting some trace copper mineralization in Naceville hardened host matrix. Eventually the group moved to the very quarry bottom.

Quarry bottoms are usually very productive due to new blasts, rock falls or material from upper levels. This trip was no exception. Naceville produced a fractional abundance of mineralization once collectors began their searches.

Sprays of stilbite were located in rubble four to five yards out from the bottom wall. A huge pile of mixed dirt and rock rubble produced non-crystalline pyrite appearing as light gold paint droplets on host rock. One collector from New Jersey worked a large pile to produce more samples of malachite and chrysocolla. Biggest and perhaps best find of the day took the form of massive “peacock ore”.

Discovery began with a small piece of what appeared to be bornite passed from one collector to another. A search for the source was initiated. After discovery of a patch of surface malachite, washing the boulder face produced a beautiful display of chalcopyrite, bornite and pyrite. The rest of the story is history.

Three rockhounds intensified efforts and worked as a team to expose the source and collect any mineralization. The bulk of the morning generally produced resulting beautiful specimens from thumbnail to boulder size. Tally of minerals for the trip; actinolite, azurite, bornite, chalcopyrite, chrysocolla, epidote, malachite, pyrite and stilbite. Some nice samples of dendritic pyrolusite were also found. Other mineralization yet to be determined by microscopic investigation may produce covellite, datolite and laumontite. One of our members found some kind of small lightweight geode material. Most mineralization found was largely in the range of micro minerals from vugs and veinlets or covering rock faces.

The trip was a tremendous success. A return visit to this location may turn up more surprises and interesting minerals another time.

Thanks to Merrill Dickinson for putting the trip together, Haines and Kibblehouse for allowing us to explore their quarry and to all whom attended making our collecting experience successful as well as safe.

Article by Don Kauffman, member of Pennsylvania Earth Science Association, Philadelphia Mineralogical and Central Penn clubs.

FIELD TRIP TO: Burkholder Quarry, May 12, 2007

With special thanks to the Delaware Mineralogical Society at http://www.delminsociety.net and Bob Asreen.

The Burkholder quarry is located at the northern boundary of the Lancaster Valley Section of the Piedmont Physiographic Province. The Lancaster Valley consists of Cambrian- and Ordovician-aged limestone and dolomites of varying thickness that have been faulted and folded. Immediately bounding the quarry to the north are Triassic-aged red beds, composed of conglomerates, sandstones and shales, some of which are exposed along Denver Road.

The two rock units that are exposed in the quarry are the Lower to Middle Ordovician aged (485 million year old) Epler Formation and the Middle Cambrian (520 million year old) Buffalo Springs Formation.

Geologic Time Scale

The Epler Formation consists of dark gray to black, very finely crystalline, interbedded limestone and dolomite, which is exposed in the northern 4/5 of the quarry. The Buffalo Springs Formation, which is exposed only in the previously mined cove along the southern highwall, is a light to dark gray, fine to medium crystalline, laminated and interbedded limestone and dolomite.

The rocks at Burkholder Quarry were intensely deformed from faulting and folding. A high thrust fault (dipping approximately 70 degrees south), with a displacement of a few thousand, separates the Buffalo Springs Formation in the southern part of the quarry from the Epler Formation in the north. The rocks in the Epler Formation are not as intensely deformed as those in the Buffalo Springs Formation. However, the Epler

Formation is steeply dipping at the fault, is cut by several faults with resultant fold development and dips approximately 15 to 20 degrees at the northern highwall.

Mineralogy

Mineralization occurs in veins and in vug fillings in brecciated rock and includes:

Barite, which is rarely found as yellowish plates (5mm);

Calcite, which commonly occurs as massive white veins and scalenohedral crystals and smaller colorless crystals;

Chalcopyrite, which occasionally occurs as golden crystals on and in the calcite;

Dolomite, which occurs as well formed, pink curved crystals usually associated with calcite and fluorite;

Fluorite, which occurs as 3-4mm purple cubes or seen as purple sheen on fractures and joints;

Malachite, which appears as a green halo around chalcopyrite;

Pyrite, which is common as tiny pyritohedron forms associated with calcite and fluorite and as ¼ inch cubes in the green mudstone/limestone layer;

Quartz, which occurs as opaque masses in calcite and occasionally as terminated clear crystals; and

Sphalerite, which is uncommon but sometimes occurs as red-orange masses associated with calcite and dolomite.

FIELD TRIP TO: Silver Hill Quarry, owned and operated by H&K Group 470 Yellow Hill Road, R.D. #1 Narvon, PA 17555 Latitude 40*11’38. 81”N Longitude 75*22’25. 24” W (GPS)

Silver Hill Quarry is an active surface mining operation. Processing of gray diabase has provided a full line of aggregate crushed stone products to contractors in Lancaster, Berks, and Chester counties since 1986.

(NOTE: BE SURE TO GO WITH AN APPROVED MINERAL CLUB AND NEVER ENTER A PROPERTY WITHOUT PERMISSION.)

DIRECTIONS: The best way to reach Silver Hill Quarry is to use directions provided by your host club, Mapquest, another internet tool or a map from the collector’s home location. From Reading the quarry site is about 14.2 miles in a generally south/southwest direction with a traveling time of about 29 minutes.

INFORMATIONAL NOTE: Silver Hill Quarry is a relatively new site that sits just over the Berks County border in neighboring Lancaster County. As best can be determined there are no previous documents, histories or extensive references about this location.

GEOLOGY: the upper northeast 17-mile long section of Lancaster County neighboring southern Berks falls within a broad section of the prominent Gettysburg-Newark Triassic Zone. Here, approximately 186-226 million years ago, sedimentary shales, sandstones and conglomerates were intruded by magma diabase. Silver Hill is one of numerous quarries found within this area that runs in a continuous east-west trending band from western banks of the Delaware River to lower Adams County. Triassic material fills the lower point of Berks County that fans out north and east of Narvon.

Not far away, fanning out to western compass points, this Triassic band contacts younger Ordovician limestones and dolomites in a part of Lancaster County that is also a popular collecting area. Burkholder and Weaverland quarries less than a half dozen miles SW of Silver Hill offer collecting in limestone formations. Another half dozen miles further west Kurtz Quarry near Denver, PA offers collecting in light-colored marbleized limestone. Finally off Route 72 below Manheim, at a distance of about 18 miles SW Binkley-Ober Quarry offers collectibles from dark gray Buffalo Springs Formation limestones.

Other notable collecting locations within the Triassic zone occupied by Silver Hill are Grace Mine at Morgantown (approximately 5 miles southeast) and French Creek at St. Peters (roughly 9 miles due east of Narvon). Just about 35 miles north/northwest of this location is the famous Lebanon County Cornwall Mine. (A mixed-zone association existing here of Triassic diabase and Ordovician limestone).Once again, as in so many Newark Basin quarries, the contributing factor to mineralization found in host diabase is evaporates that were injected into shales,

sandstones and conglomerates. This area was a highly stressed and heated battle zone between early forming adjoined continents of America and Africa during the Triassic Era. It is highly likely that super-heated hornfels is also part of Silver Hill quarry mineral environs.

MINERALS: Rick Condon of Berks Mineralogical Society noted collection of actinolite, apatite, hematite and calcite during a club visit in 2006.

Igneous diabase also gathers associate minerals of pyrite, chalcopyrite, chlorite, and ilmenite. Should any metamorphic diabase and hornfels rock be found at Silver Hill potential for discovery of quartz, mica, epidote, garnet and feldspar is possible as well as stilbite, natrolite, chabazite and laumontite.Occurrences of pyrite, chalcopyrite, calcite and magnetite are also possible depending on whether Cornwall type matrix has slipped in the geological mix. Taking lessons from minerals found at Naceville, Perkiomenville, and other Triassic Basin quarries there is also good potential for many zeolites (analcime, apophyllite, prehnite and stellerite), their associates plus clay minerals. All told a potential for at least 30 mineral species.

An additional point of geological interest nearby is an occurrence at a location southeast of Silver Hill. In the Narvon Mines of Lancaster county significant amounts of kaolin white clay have been mined since beginning of the 20th Century and probably before 1880.

Due to low content aluminum of these clays a fine washed material was produced from mining operations at this location. These notably pure clays with just 20% aluminum carbonate proved ideal for use as filler for paper, china, paint and rubber, tile and linoleum. Narvon china is still a notable product today. In addition to the Narvon Mines only one other active mine, near Kunkletown in Monroe County is still providing similar clay for such commercial uses.

REFERENCES:

H&K Group Silver Hill Quarry, H&K Homepage http://www.hkgroup.com/companies/silver-hill-quarry/index.aspx 3/10/07Lapham, Davis, “Mineral Collecting in Pennsylvania” Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, c1969 pages 37-38, 59-62, 107-112

Pittsburgh Geological Society, Geology of Pennsylvania” Pennsylvania Geological Survey, 1999 page 611

Prepared for Pennsylvania Earth Science Association ROCK NEWS and Philadelphia Mineralogical Society Newsletter by Don Kauffman member from Reading, PA

Postscript: Found a piece in my Mindat.org notebook about Money Rocks Park, Lancaster County, PA. Message Board writer states, “Apparently next to Narvon Clay Mines which was bought out in 2000 by Martin Limestone Inc. As a follow-up to a visit the writer made to MRP in early December 2006, “found some nice quartz points and an arrowhead! It wasn’t at the big cliff though it was a little up the trail where there a lot of scattered cliffs and boulders…there may be somenice (sic) amethyst around in the area. But didn’t find any.” Posted to mindat.org Message Board by Jeff Beckert.

Take Route 23 East to Route 322 East. Turn right and follow Route 322 East for four miles to Narvon Road. Take a right turn onto Narvon Road for one mile. The parking lot is on the right across from Alexander Drive. http://www.co.lancaster.pa.us/parks/cwp/view.asp?=676&q=518297&parksNav

Central Penn Rock and Mineral Field Trips

PMS Club members have been generously invited to attend field trips organized by the Central Penn Rock and Mineral Club.

For information and registration contact: William.Nesbit@dla.mil 717 657-9476

May 5 (Saturday) … Joint field trip with Franklin County club by Tom Smith. National Limestone, Mount Pleasant. Meet… at Quarry Office at 8:00 AM

May 6th (Sunday) …Reading Banks, Mt Holly Manganese locality. Article written on this site in the “February 2006 issue of Rocks and Gems” Meeting

place… McDonald’s just off Dillsburg, along RT 15 at 9:00 AM

May 12th (Saturday) …Joint field trip with Franklin County club by Tom Smith. Where, When, What --- Unknown?- Contact Bill Nesbit

May 13th (Sunday) …Wissahickon Valley Almandine garnets, found along Fairmont Park, near Philadelphia, site 31 in the book “Gem Trails of Pennsylvania & New Jersey” Meeting place… Wendy’s off I-83. Union Deposit exit at 8:00 AM … or at Fairmont Park at 10:00 AM Contact Bill Nesbit for Fairmont Park meeting spot

June 2nd (Saturday) …Joint Field trip with Franklin County club by Tom Smith. Where, When, What --- Unknown? – Contact Bill Nesbit

June 3 (Sunday) …Adams County Triassic age petrified wood, different type than fornd in York County, also, Gold panning will be permitted by property owner. … training on”how to pan for gold: will be provided, Attendees must bring their oun panning equipment. Meeting place… McDonald’s just north of Dillsburg on RT 15 at 8:00 AM

June 10th (Sunday) …Juaniata County, Seven Stars, PA Fossil hunt, upper part of the Devonian Mahantango formation, 370 Million years old, Meeting place…Wendy’s off I-81 Enola exit at 8:30 AM

June 24th (Sunday) …York County. First site: Triassic age. Rare fresh water fossils. Second and Third sites: Triassic age petrified wood, at two different areas. Fourth site: Cambrian age trilobites Meeting place …Wendy’s off I-83, Stringstown exit 28 at 8:30 AM

June 30th to July 3rd …(an overnight weekend field trip ..7 hour drive –9 different sites to collect minerals …Call Merrill Dickinson for details, 610 473-9973. Meeting place… Motel 6 in Statesville, NC off I-77 at 8:00 AM on Saturday June 30 Phone 704-873-8116

Philadelphia Mineralogical Society NewsJohn Rateike, President337 Cricket Ave,Glenside, PA 19038

Monthly Meeting, Thursday, June 14The June meeting will be our annual and popular silent auction. Remember, we meet in Cathedral Hall. Please consider bringing donations. Anything mineral related will do. This means minerals (self collected or purchased), books, magazines, or other printed material. Please provide identification and locality information (if available) on donated mineral specimens. Donation forms will be available at the May and June meetings. Also consider bringing treats. Cake and beverages will be provided.

Newsletter Items Wanted!If you would like to continue receiving Philadelphia Mineralogical Society Newsletters, please consider contributing content. Newsletters will be published only if there is enough material to warrant one. Forward text in Word format at least 2 weeks prior to the next club meeting to: jdrat@comcast.net. The newsletter editor (that’s me) reserves the rights to alter, reformat, edit, delay or exclude submissions based upon space available for the month.

John Rateike, President, Philadelphia Mineralogical Society