Previous editions of newsletter, and PDF versions.
In 1986, Lake Nyos, Cameroon released a cloud of CO2 that killed 1700 people and devastated domestic herds and wildlife for many square kilometers. Was this the work of lake spirits or a geologic phenomenon previously unrecognized? This talk takes us on a tour of the mysteries surrounding Lake Nyos immediately following the disaster and shows how data collected over the next decade identified the culprit and the mitigation strategies to save lifes.
I find it hard to believe that my year as President is nearly complete. Over these past months I have enjoyed working with the Council towards completion of a number of projects. The Council met four times throughout the year. Several Council actions not discussed in previous newsletters are summarized below.
See you at the December Meeting,
Michele Tuttle
CSS President
The symposium will be held on the Colorado School of Mines campus, Golden, Colorado, Sept. 7-10. It will include 1-1/2 days of lectures (Saturday and Sunday, Sep. 7-8), followed by two days of field trips to selected Colorado gem localities (Sep. 9-10). The symposium will endeavor to bring together professionals and knowledgeable amateurs involved in mining, collecting, mineralogical and geological research on, and curation and display of gem materials from the Rocky Mountain region. Papers on all important gemstone occurrences of the region are being solicited.
The symposium will precede the 2002 Denver Gem and Mineral Show, which will be held Sept. 13-15, 2002; the theme of this show will be "Gemstones of Colorado".
Anyone interested in presenting a paper should submit a title and a 50-word summary by Jan. 1, 2002, to Pete Modreski, USGS, email pmodreski@usgs.gov, or to Friends of Mineralogy, Colorado Chapter, P.O. Box 5276, Golden CO 80401-5276. Longer abstracts for publication at the symposium will be requested later. Further information about the symposium is also available from the above addresses.
First Place ($125): Heather Stanton, Colorado State University:
Sheep Mountain: Back-limb tightening and sequential deformation in a classic locality in the Bighorn Basin,
Wyoming.
Runner-up ($75): Brian Romans, Colorado School of Mines:
Proximal-distal relationships of deep-water deposits, Permian Brushy Canyon Formation, west Texas.
Michelle Tuttle, Eric Nelson, Pete Modreski, Bob Fleming and I met Thursday, November 1st to start discussing the direction of outreach and restart the road-sign project – for which there is a grant deadline of February 15th that is quickly approaching. I am writing to enlist ideas and support for this sign project. RIGHT NOW, we need to solicit your ideas for potential road-sign localities, the geologic content for that road sign, designing or helping in the design of the road sign, maybe help with installation, metal working, sign making, contacts, etc., etc. With these ideas, I will be developing a grant proposal to The Science and Cultural Facilities District for a February deadline – anybody who wants to help with that or knows of other potential funding sources is also welcome to volunteer their time, skills and efforts. Eric and others have suggested the initial sign development be at Buffalo Bills; he has done some preliminary contact work and Pete and Bob have some sign development ideas in line with signs at Dinosaur Ridge. We are reviving the road sign idea to get signs made for points of geologic interest to make the common citizen more aware of the geology around them. We hope to collaborate with CO-DOT, Denver Parks, and other appropriate county, state or Federal agencies. Your help and skills are welcome. Please feel free to email me at p.belanger@att.net or call during the day at 303-436-1930 or eves at 303-980-8732.
One new item to expect in 2002 is a column with interviews of geoscientists working and/or living in Colorado. We hope to offer a number of perspectives, including those from the exploration industries, environmental geology, government agencies, and geotechnical engineering, to mention only a few disciplines.
An important issue regarding the newsletter is the cost and hassle of mailing hard copies to members. As the world becomes more digital each year, we would like to encourage members with email or web accessibility to refrain from receiving a mailed hard copy of the newsletter. By printing your own newsletter or reading it online, you could help the Society save up to $1000/year, and convert these funds into outreach, memorial fund grants, and other philanthropic causes the Society undertakes. We plan to poll the membership in order to learn how many currently receiving hard copies can be converted to electronic distribution. A bonus to those reading or printing the newsletter from the website is COLOR! (Hard copy readers will note the lack of color in this word!).
Eric P. Nelson, President-elect
In the morning (Sat.) Everyone was ready to go by 7:30 AM and we arrived at the Ulrich’s Fossil Gallery right on schedule at 9:00 AM. We were taken in 4WD vehicles to the top of their quarry at 7200 feet. The weather was perfect and 19 people (Jane and Mike Ohl were there to take pictures and didn’t want to collect) were soon furiously splitting shale and finding plenty of fossil fish! One large slab looked like an aquarium!. After several hours we returned to the gallery where we ate lunch while the staff people trimmed and packed our "treasures". Everyone really enjoyed the fish collecting but we were getting behind schedule for the rest of the days activities as we were due at the P&M coal mine at 1:30. With a lot of hustling we made it to the mine by 2:00 and were met by mine manager Gary Johnson and mine geologist Lynn Sessions. They gave us an excellent tour through the largest open-pit coal mine in the U.S. We left the mine about 3:00 and headed for Vernal, UT. We drove through Flaming Gorge and dropped down through the entire Mesozoic and Paleozoic section into the Precambrian core of the Uinta Mtns. We had reserved a campground in Dinosaur Natl. Monument for our Saturday evening cook-out but as we were running late we didn’t enter the monument until almost 7:00, too late to see the dinosaur quarry. However, the campground was spectacular; right on the Green River with large cottonwood trees. Our group forgot about the dinosaurs when "horse-d-overs" of shrimp, smoked salmon, brie, pepper cheese and, of course, iced champagne were served!! This was followed by BBQ steak and chicken, potato salad (2 kinds), and cheese cake and chocolate cake. At 10:00 PM, 19 stuffed people wedged themselves into the vans to go back to Vernal for the night.
CIEN T At 7:30 AM the next day (Sunday) a miracle happened. Everybody was ready to go! We left Vernal, UT and headed to the Piceance Basin, via Rangley, CO, to tour the American Soda Nahcolite (NaHCO 3 ) mine. We arrived exactly on time at 9:30 and were given an excellent tour of the mine by Max Ramey and mine staff. This is a solution mining operation where hot water is pumped down 13 wells into the nahcolite, which is dissolved and then pumped 44 miles south to Parachute, CO to the processing plant. The entire mining operation is computerized and run by 39 employees. We left the mine to travel to the Parachute facility for a tour of the processing plant, stopping at Rifle Gap State park for lunch where we consumed leftovers from the BBQ as well as our regular lunch! At 3:00 we arrived for our tour and learned EVERYTHING about soda ash (for glass manufacturing) and bi-carb of soda production. The tour ended with a question and answer session with Irv Nielsen, the discoverer of the deposit. By 4:30 we were ready to head for home via Glenwood Canyon and Vail Pass (where we stopped to , what else, help polish off the leftover food; especially the homemade peanut-butter cookies!). Our trip ended back at the park-and-ride by 7:30 PM.
All in all this was one of the most successful field trips it’s been my pleasure to lead. This was primarily due to all the help I received from members on the trip, especially Bill Atkinson and Jack Edwards for the expert geology and Tim Marsh, who drove the other van and was chief cook at the bar-b-que. Also, without the help and expertise of the Ulrich’s and the staffs at the P&M coal mine and the American Soda Co. we couldn’t have done it. Thanks to everyone!!
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Dinner at the Bitter Creek Brewery. Left side of table (some may not be visible): Ken Rukstales, Tim Marsh, Joan Rowe, Mike Ohl, Mark Neilson, Dan Miggins, Marcelle Arak, Nancy Camp, Donna Edwards, and Sherm Marsh at end. Right side of table: Lisa Bader, Dick Neilson, Jane Ohl, Bill atkinson, Carol Atkinson, Michele Tuttle, Allen Heyl, Rita Friedman, Irv Friedman, Jack Edwards, and Colleen Marsh. |
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Ulrich’s fossil fish quarry. From left: Ulrich staff, Nancy Camp, Ulrich staff, Joan Rowe, Tim Marsh, Irv Friedman, and Rita Friedman. |
Colorado State University All seminars are located in the Natural Resources Building. For details, call 970-491-5661. http://www.cnr.colostate.edu/ER/seminars/index.html (not yet updated for fall)
Denver International Petroleum Society meets the 2nd Friday of each month at the Wynkoop Brewing Co., 18th and Wynkoop Streets. Reception begins at 11:30 a.m., luncheon at 12 p.m., program at 12:30 p.m. Make reservations (required) by leaving message at (303) 623-5396. Reservations accepted after 8 a.m. on Friday until 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday prior to the meeting. Cancellations accepted until 11:00 am Wednesday prior to the meeting. Cost: $15 for lunches; talk only is available for $2 (make checks payable to "D.I.P.S."). Contact Keith Murray at (303) 986-8554 for information.
Denver Mining Club meets every Thursday (except when noted) at Country Harvest Buffet at Villa Italia, 7200 W. Alameda Ave., Lakewood, 11:30 a.m.-1:00 p.m.
Denver Region Exploration Geologists' Society (DREGS) meets in the Mutual Consolidated Water Building, 12700 West 27th Avenue, Lakewood. Social hour 6:00-7:00 p.m. Technical presentation at 7:00 p.m. Meetings are normally scheduled for the first Monday of each month. For information contact Jim Piper, (303) 932-0134, or the website http://www.dregs.org/. Dec. 6: Auction of Mining Memorabilia. Come help us celebrate our 110th anniversary! Dec. 13: ABC NewsSpecial, "Tampering with Nature," w/ John Stossel. (A video from SME/GEM) Dec. 20: Paul C. Jones, President, Sovereign Gold Co., Ltd., "Current Status of BLM Mining Regulations--Correcting Babbitt's Mischief"
Denver Well Logging Society (DWLS) meets on the third Tuesday of each month, Sept. through May. Lunch and a technical talk at the Wynkoop Brewery begins at 11:30 a.m., 18th and Wynkoop Sts. in Denver. Subject matter usually deals with the application of well logs to oil and gas exploration. Call Elice Wickham at 303-573-2781 for reservations. Web page: http://dwls.spwla.org/.
Rocky Mountain Association of Geologists (RMAG) Reception at 11:30 a.m., lunch at 12:00 p.m., talk at 12:30 p.m. Reservations are taken by recording at 303-623-5396 until 10:30 a.m., Wed. before the luncheon. Cancellations are taken until 11:00 a.m. on Wed. at 303-573-8621. Luncheon cost is $20 payable to RMAG at the door. Reservations are not required for talk only---cost is $3. Meeting location: Denver Petroleum Club, Anaconda Tower, 555-17th St, 37th floor.
USGS Geologic Division Colloquium Thursdays, 1:30 p.m., Foord Rm., Building 20, entrance W3, Denver Federal Center. No meetings because everyone is at GSA!. For information call Laura Strickland at 303-236-5302, or email: lstrickland@usgs.gov Dec. 6: Berton Lee Lamb (USGS), Analyzing the Public Policy Decision Process.
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