DGMS Rock Swap This Weekend… and other exciting news!

Looking forward to seeing everybody this Saturday, September 19, for our Fall DGMS Rock Swap!

The Rock Swap will start around 8am and end around 2ish. Come early to set up your table with anything rock related to buy, sell or trade. Don’t forget your chair and a hat or some form of shade. Soft drinks and water will be sold by DGMS. Location is DGMS parking lot at 10205 Plano Rd. Dallas Tx   Masks are required  ( Members…the club could use some help bringing rocks out of the shop to the parking lot for the Rock Swap. Show up around 8:00am if you can help out )


DGMS monthly meeting is scheduled for Tues. September 22nd at 7pm. 

es folks, it’s true!!  We will finally get to meet in person. We have lots to go over. We will be discussing the show and will have Volunteer sign-up sheets circulating at the meeting. Also, please consider a position on the DGMS Board. Maybe for you, maybe for someone you think would be a good fit. Our current board has been in place for three years but I know a few are wanting to step down and let others bring their great ideas and progressive plans to the board. Think about who you would like to nominate for the vote. Opening positions will be announced at the meeting. There will be no pot luck and masks are required.

dallas gem and mineral society - photo by mike andrews

DGMS Signup….Shop & Rock Identification for Show

We’re using SignUp.com (the leading online SignUp and reminder tool) to organize our upcoming SignUps.
Here’s how it works in 3 easy steps:
1) Click this link to see our SignUp on SignUp.com: https://signup.com/go/XCRfVxD
2) Review the options listed and choose the spot(s) you like.
3) Sign up! It’s Easy – you will NOT need to register an account or keep a password on SignUp.com.

Note: SignUp.com does not share your email address with anyone. If you prefer not to use your email address, please contact Lynn and he can sign you up manually.


Other Shop News….

Shop is in need of Muscle Power!
The shop needs to move rocks from one storage unit to another. Meet at the shop on Sunday September 20th at 12:00. This should not take very much time as the storage units are close to one another.

Rockhounding Quartz in Arkansas

Have you made it up to Mt Ida in Arkansas to rockhound for Quartz yet? There are numerous Pay-to-Dig mines up in the area around Hot Springs where you pay a reasonable day fee & collect all the quartz you can carry home with you! It’s a fun and educational activity for the whole family!

Thank You to our member Auston F. for sharing some of the fantastic Quartz Crystals he collected during his most recent trip to Arkansas! Hope these pics inspire you to go try it out!

Do you have any pics of your favorite Rockhounding trip? Let us know!

Email: dgms.sec@gmail.com

Working From Home

We’d like to share this amazing pendant that our DGMS member Sean M made while being stuck at home this summer (like the rest of us). Congrats to him on this breathtaking piece! We can’t wait till everything gets back to normal so we can offer some fantastic classes again to help build everyone’s skills!!


Hi everyone, I wanted to share what I have been working on while stuck at home. After taking the introductory silversmith class with Barbara, I have been building my inventory of tools and developing my skills. I read a lot of books and watched a lot of YouTube videos. Recently I was commissioned to create a custom piece for a client. She had a wonderful, and big, Smokey Enhydro Quartz Cabachon that she wanted made into a pendant. It took me a while to decide what would work best. I had to watch a few videos and purchase some special tools. It came out so nice I wanted to share it with you. I had to hammer form the bezel wire around the stone. Thankfully the quartz was hard enough to do this. Thanks to Barbara for helping me get started with her silversmith class. I look forward to seeing everyone again when we can. May see a few of you at the shop. 
Sean M
iwannarock.minerals@gmail.com


Have you been working on a new skill during this crazy summer? Or do you just have something super cool that you’d just like to share with everybody? Let us know!

Email: dgms.sec@gmail.com

Pyrite: So Much More Than Just Fool’s Gold

Take a deep dive into one of geology’s most interesting minerals, Pyrite! Thank You to DGMS Member – Rich P. for sharing some fascinating facts and and pictures of Pyrite from his personal collection!


Pyrite

I pity the fool that mistakes Pyrite for Gold (like $1.00/oz. vs $1,800/oz.). But maybe I’m the fool, because I’m simply fascinated with “fool’s Gold”. How in the world can a mineral form a perfect cube in nature? Seems impossible, but it’s true, so I set out to figure out how this can be.

To start with the mineral Pyrite is iron sulfate with the chemical formula FeS2. So, what we’re looking at here is a single Iron atom bonded with two Sulfide atoms. This gives Pyrite the capability to form simple cuboidal crystals when all the environmental things are right. Every crystal has an orderly, internal pattern of atoms, with a distinctive way of locking new atoms into that pattern to repeat it again and again. The shape of the resulting crystal can be a cube, as in salt crystals or pyrite. I can’t follow all the chemical reaction that occurs, but I can tell you that some, not all Pyrite crystals are in the form of a perfect cube in nature. The one pictured above was not cut or shaped except by nature.  

Pyrite is thought to be the most common of the sulfide minerals. So, you say, hard and stinky? Well not really. The name Pyrite comes from the Greek word pyr, “fire” because sparks can be made when you strike Pyrite with steel. So, in a way, because of my fascination with Pyrite you could call me a “pyritemaniac”! Ha! Well, maybe not. But I digress. 

Pyrite is considered “the most harmful of all the minerals” according to Robert Finkelman a professor at UT Dallas. What! That’s right, professor Finkelman stated that “Pyrite binds arsenic in coal. When coal burns, Pyrite is oxidized thus releasing arsenic. For instance, the occupational lung disease of miners is caused by Pyrite. Pyrite is a main source of acid gases in the atmosphere.” So, what is Pyrite used for you ask? Pyrite is used in the production of sulfur dioxide, in applications like the paper industry and the manufacture of sulfuric acid.

If you are into metaphysical properties, you may want to go pick some up. According to energymuse.com:

“If you’re lacking motivation or physical strength, call on the Pyrite crystal meaning and reconnect to Mother Nature with this power stone that harnesses the earth element, the powerful energies that ground you and guide your spirit to a place of higher wisdom. If you’ re ready to take action to achieve your dreams and aspirations, be a rock star at meditation practice when you incorporate Pyrite and its divine guidance.”

But if you’re like me, then you just might like the mineral because of the way it looks and the way it forms a perfect cube in nature. But wait! There’s more.

As I’m sure many of you have seen, and like me, love a good “Pyrite Sun”, which is also known as “Miners Dollars”, “Pyrite Dollars”, or even “Sun Dollars”. But as stated on the illinoisstatemueum.com web site:

“..don’t call them fossils. They may look like fossilized plants, but the crystal structures actually formed deep underground under great pressure about 350 million years ago. These round disks sometimes occur between seams of coal and may be found when coal is mined. Although pyrite is quite common worldwide, the disk form is virtually unique to Illinois.”

I always just thought they were a pretty neat fossil, but they form naturally and that is really cool. But don’t get me wrong, in some fossil deposits Pyrite can be incorporated into bone, shells, or plant fossils during the process of fossilization. About a quarter way around the world, near England, is just one area where you can find some great Pyrite Ammonite fossils. 

From Wikipedia.org: “Ammonoids are a group of extinct marine mollusc animals in the subclass Ammonoidea of the class Cephalopoda. These molluscs, commonly referred to as ammonites, are more closely related to living coleoids (i.e., octopuses, squid, and cuttlefish) than they are to shelled nautiloids such as the living Nautilus species.[1] The earliest ammonites appear during the Devonian, and the last species vanished in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event.”

But as I stated in the beginning of this, maybe I’m the fool, because I’m simply fascinated with “fool’s Gold”. There are some really unique and crazy things associated with fool’s gold that make this one of the really cool minerals that I collect. Although, I am looking to a big chunk of “REAL” gold for my collection if you happen to have one cheap.

1. [1] Klug, Christian; Kröger, Björn; Vinther, Jakob; Fuchs, Dirk (August 2015). “Ancestry, Origin and Early Evolution of Ammonoids”. In Christian Klug; Dieter Korn; Kenneth De Baets; Isabelle Kruta; Royal H. Mapes (eds.). Ammonoid Paleobiology: From macroevolution to paleogeography. Topics in Geobiology 44. Springer. p. 3-24. doi:10.1007/978-94-017-9633-0_1.


Do you have a favorite mineral that you’d like to share with us?
Just let us know by writing up a short article & include some jpgs!
Email it to: dgms.sec@gmail.com

DGMS News & Updates

Hey there everybody! Just here with a few DGMS Club and Shop updates……

DGMS SHOP IS OPEN !!!

We have done so much work making the Shop safe for all qualified members to come in and get out of the house!

Our shop Supervisor Lynn has made a couple videos to share with you what COVID precautions we’ve have taken to make it as safe and comfortable as possible!


This is the new Rock Shop Sign-Up for July and August
[ We’re using SignUp.com (the leading online SignUp and reminder tool) to organize our upcoming SignUps.
Here’s how it works in 3 easy steps:
1) Click this link to see our SignUp on SignUp.com: https://signup.com/go/XCRfVxD
2) Review the options listed and choose the spot(s) you like.
3) Sign up! It’s Easy – you will NOT need to register an account or keep a password on SignUp.com.
Note: SignUp.com does not share your email address with anyone. 
YOU MAY SIGN UP FOR 2 SHIFTS OR ALL THREE IF THE SPACE IS OPEN


Amethyst - Dallas Gem and Mineral Society

McKinney Trade Days Field Trip July 19th

Join our next DGMS Field-trip this Saturday, Meet at the Main Entrance at 11:00. It’s located at 4550 W University Dr. in McKinney. No sign up is required. If you plan to attend you will need to visit the website https://thirdmondaytradedays.com/ so you can follow any COVID mandates required by the city of McKinney.

There are quite a few Rock & Mineral Dealers there!