1. Best Fossil
2. Best Lapidary or rock art item (non-gemstone)
3. Best Gemstone
4. Best Photograph with hobby theme
5. Best Mineral from Ontario
6. Best Mineral from Canada outside Ontario
7. Best Mineral from the USA
8. Best Mineral outside Canada and USA
9. Best Thumbnail
10. Best "Blue" specimen
11. Best Petrified wood specimen
12. Best Garden Rock
13. Best Mineral oddity
14. Best Quartz specimen
15. Best Specimen Collected by a Kid Under 16
Silent and live auctions, pizza and pop provided by the club.
George Kourounis is an explorer who specializes in documenting the extreme forces of nature. He shared tales and imagery from his more intense expeditions that feature a geological perspective, including: exploring the Naica Crystal Cave in Mexico, home to the world's largest crystals, where the oppressive humidity and heat are deadly; rappelling down inside active volcanoes in the South Pacific; and his expedition to gather samples from the bottom of the Darvaza flaming gas pit in Turkmenistan, which the locals call the "Doorway To Hell".
Kourounis' expeditions have taken him to some of the most dangerous places in over 65 countries from Greenland to Antarctica, to North Korea, The Congo, and beyond.
The main talk was by Fred "Mick" McPherson, a meteorite hunter and collector. Fred is a native of Belleville, Ontario, and a rockhound since the age of 5. Fred visits schools and clubs throughout the province presenting meteorite talks and outreach programs as "Mick the Meteorite Man". Fred has been featured on CBC television, radio interviews, newspapers and is well respected within the meteorite community.
There were also giant silent auctions for rocks, minerals, fossils, meteorites, gemstones, and other rock-related items.
For more than a decade, artist Symeon van Donkelaar has traveled across much of Canada to forage rocks and dirt to make pigments and paint. Each trip has been an adventure in creating unique earth pigment colours. From abandoned mining operations, like the O'Donnell Burning Fields in Sudbury, to sacred ochre sites, like the Vermilion Bluffs in British Columbia, the range of different places in Canada from which beautiful, bright colours can be created is vast. In this talk, Symeon shared stories, photos and specimens from some of his favourite "pigment" places across Canada.
Mini-talk by Emmanuel "Manny" van Donkelaar on "Finding Silver in Cobalt". In 2017 Emmanuel van Donkelaar visited friends in Cobalt to search for minerals in Cobalt, Ontario. Over three days, he visited a variety of old mine sites and worked his way through a "ton" of rock. The results of his hard work won him the Best Self Collected Specimen award from the Kitchener-Waterloo Gem and Mineral Club. You heard about the adventure of rock hounding for silver through the eyes of a 10-year-old boy.
Michael Gervers is Professor of Medieval History at the University of Toronto. His interests range from English social and economic history before 1300, to the history of Inner Asia (especially Mongolia), to ancient textiles and to the history of Ethiopia. He teaches a course on the history of Ethiopia and has recently introduced the study of Old Ethiopic (Ge'ez) language to the curriculum. He has published widely on the above fields and is currently co-authoring a major volume on the ancient Ethiopian church of Yemrehanna Krestos (near Lalibela, Lasta). A new objective, sponsored by the Arcadia Fund, is to document the contemporary but quickly disappearing highland craft of hewing churches from the rock. His thirty-five years of fieldwork has led to an extensive photographic repertory of Ethiopian art and culture. For a preview of what we will hear about, visit here.
1. Best Fossil
2. Best Lapidary or rock art item (non-gemstone)
3. Best Gemstone
4. Best Photograph with hobby theme
5. Best Mineral from Ontario
6. Best Mineral from Canada outside Ontario
7. Best Mineral from the USA
8. Best Mineral outside Canada and USA
9. Best Thumbnail
10. Best "Red and Green" specimen
11. Best Petrified wood specimen
12. Best Garden Rock
13. Best Mineral oddity
14. Best Fluorite specimen
15. Best Specimen Collected by a Kid Under 16
Sam Kelley grew up in Maine, in a family with two geology professors, and has bounced back and forth across the US-Canadian border numerous times over his academic career. He got a B. Sc. Honors in Earth Sciences from Dalhousie University in 2007, an M. Sc. in Quaternary Geology and Climate Change from the University of Maine in 2009, and a Ph. D. in Geology from the University at Buffalo in 2014. He is currently a postdoctoral fellow in Quaternary Sciences at the University of Waterloo.
I study the way the landscape is shaped by glaciers and ice sheets, and what these interactions can tell me about past changes in past climate. My lecture will look at the field work I have done in Greenland, as well as New Zealand and Patagonia, and what that work tells us about changes in past climate. Focusing on my work in Greenland, we will explore how the Greenland Ice Sheet has been changing in recent times, and what this might mean for the future. Additionally, I will touch on the growing role that the mineral Quartz plays in climate change research.
Dr. Chiang obtained her bachelor and master's degrees from the Chemical Engineering Department of the University of Toronto. Since graduation, she worked as a process engineer for the mining industry for five years, and became a licenced Professional Engineer of Ontario. She returned to academia in 2010 and started her doctoral research work on economic value of industrial wastes and residues at KU Leuven in Belgium. Dr. Chiang is currently working as an Assistant Professor in the School of Engineering at the University of Guelph.
Mini-talk by Stan Jones, "Local minerals under the microscope".
Alan Dickin received his Bachelor's degree in Mineralogy and Petrology from Cambridge, and his D. Phil. in Isotope Geochemistry from Oxford. His research program over the past 30 years at McMaster has been devoted to using neodymium isotope analysis to understand the history of the Canadian Shield in the one-billion-year-old Grenville Orogenic Belt. His talk will describe a new geological model for the origins of exotic rocks in the Bancroft area of the Grenville Province.
Also, our annual welcome-back meeting. You are invited to bring specimens that you collected or acquired during the summer, and speak briefly about them during our "Show and Tell". Feel free to bring specimens that you want identified, too.
Categories: 1. Best self-collected specimen (Canada); 2. Best self-collected specimen (elsewhere); 3. Best fossil; 4. Best lapidary or rock art item (non-gemstone); 5. Best gemstone; 6. Best photograph with hobby theme; 7. Best mineral from Ontario; 8. Best mineral from Canada outside Ontario; 9. Best mineral from the US; 10. Best mineral from outside Canada and the US; 11. Best thumbnail; 12. Best mineral oddity; 13. Ugliest specimen. 14. Best garden rock. 15. Best radioactive specimen. Each category gets a certificate. You can submit specimens not collected or acquired this year, but only ones from the past year are eligible for the two big trophies (best self-collected and Silver Pick). The club provides coffee and desserts from Vincenzo's.
There was also a kid's table and a noncompetitive table.
While the votes were tabulated, there was be a raffle and Peter Russell gave a mini-talk on "Jerome and Clarkdale, Arizona: Copper Mining with a Canadian Connection".
Synopsis: High in the Andes Mountains in northern Peru, Quiruvilca has produced excellent mineral specimens for many decades. Discovered in the late 19th century and mined on a large commercial scale since 1907, Quiruvilca is one of Peru's oldest and best known polymetallic mines. Among mineralogists and mineral collectors, Quiruvilca is most renowned for world-class specimens of Enargite, Arsenic and Orpiment, the world's finest Hutchinsonite crystals and exceptional Pyrite and Bournonite crystals. This presentation is an overview, with an emphasis on the fine minerals of Quiruvilca, inspired by an adventure into the Andes and into this world-famous mine.
Ray McDougall was born in Montréal, grew up in Toronto, and studied mineralogy and geology while completing a B.A. at McGill University in 1992. He went on to become a corporate/securities lawyer in Toronto for 18 years, where he was a partner of the firm Stikeman, Elliott LLP, working with clients in the Canadian mining industry. Ray was internationally known as an expert relating to Canadian mineral disclosure laws. He retired from law in 2013 to become a full-time mineral dealer (McDougall Minerals - www.mcdougallminerals.com ).
Ray has been an avid mineral collector since childhood and has enjoyed field collecting across Canada and around the world. Now living in the woods near Bancroft Ontario, he travels internationally in pursuit of fine mineral specimens and spends a lot of time in a dark room taking mineral photographs.
Rachel ten Bruggencate of the University of Manitoba talked about stone tools: "Rocks that walk: Tracing ancient human travel in Canada's North with stone tool chemistry". She holds a W. Garfield Weston Postdoctoral Fellowship in Northern Studies in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Waterloo. She uses trace element and isotopic geochemistry to link ancient quartz and chert tools from archaeological sites in the Canadian North back to the quarries they came from. Rachel received her PhD in Anthropology from the University of Manitoba in 2014, her MA from the University of Manitoba in 2008, and her BA from the University of Winnipeg in 2005.
Mini-talk by Jeffrey Shallit, "Visiting a Kansas Salt Mine".
Categories: 1. Best self-collected specimen (Canada); 2. Best self-collected specimen (elsewhere); 3. Best fossil; 4. Best lapidary or rock art item (non-gemstone); 5. Best gemstone; 6. Best photograph with hobby theme; 7. Best mineral from Ontario; 8. Best mineral from Canada outside Ontario; 9. Best mineral from the US; 10. Best mineral from outside Canada and the US; 11. Best thumbnail; 12. Best mineral oddity; 13. Ugliest specimen. 14. Best garden rock. 15. Best radioactive specimen. Each category gets a certificate. You can submit specimens not collected or acquired this year, but only ones from the past year are eligible for the two big trophies (best self-collected and Silver Pick). The club provided coffee and desserts from Vincenzo's.
Advance sign-up needed at j.shallit@gmail.com . Limit 20 for each trip.
In the evening, Club meeting,
7:30 PM, with stories about the "old days" from Jim Reimer and other long-time members. The
public is invited! Members will bring in some of their favorite self-collected specimens for show. Supper before the meeting
is planned at the 5:00 PM at the Metro Tavern, 168 Victoria St. N., Kitchener: "best schnitzel in town".
Categories: 1. Best self-collected specimen (Canada); 2. Best self-collected specimen (elsewhere); 3. Best fossil; 4. Best lapidary or rock art item (non-gemstone); 5. Best gemstone; 6. Best photograph with hobby theme; 7. Best mineral from Ontario; 8. Best mineral from Canada outside Ontario; 9. Best mineral from the US; 10. Best mineral from outside Canada and the US; 11. Best thumbnail; 12. Best mineral oddity; 13. Ugliest specimen. Each category gets a certificate. You can submit specimens not collected or acquired this year, but only ones from the past year are eligible for the two big trophies (best self-collected and Silver Pick). The club provided coffee and desserts from Vincenzo's.
