October 2019

Happy Halloween!

WEST SEATTLE PETROGLYPHS

Mike Wall, Editor P.O. Box 16145 Seattle, WA 98116

email: mike_wall@yahoo.com

Monthly Bulletin of the West Seattle Rock Club, Inc.

Seattle, Washington

Our Club:

Practices the Rockhound Code of Ethics

Website:

http://www.westseattlerockclub.org

October 2019 West Seattle Petroglyphs Page 1

Volume 54, Number 9

Meetings:

Visitors are always welcome!

WEST SEATTLE ROCK CLUB, INC. Mailing Address: P.O. BOX 16145, Seattle, WA 98116

The purpose of this Club is to promote the study and enjoyment of the Lapidary Arts with good Rock-hounding and good fellowship; and to further education and lapidary skills for all; to conduct field trips for exploration and collection of minerals, gems, rocks and fossils; to promote shows and displays; to publish a monthly periodical known as West Seattle PETROGLY PHS relating to club activities.

COMMITTEE CHAIRPERSONS (2019):

Show Co-Chairs Programs Refreshments/Hospitality Membership Historian Library Chair Field Trips

Webmaster

AFFILIATED WITH:

Northwest Federation & American Federation of Mineralogical Societies Seattle Regional Gem and Mineral Show Committee

Washington State Mineral Council ALAA – American Lands Access Association

Meetings are held on the Fourth Wednesday of each month, except for November which can be on the THIRD or FOURTH Wednesday depending on Thanksgiving and no meetings in July and December

The meetings are held in Adams Hall of the Tibbetts United Methodist Church 3940 41st S.W. (corner of 41st S.W. and S.W. Andover Street) Seattle, WA

6:15 PM – Junior Meeting 7:00 PM – Adult Meeting Dues are: $20.00 first year (including name badge), then: $10.00 per adult member per year or $15.00 for 2 adults in same family, $3.00 per junior member per year

VISITORS ARE INVITED AND ARE ALWAYS WELCOME TO ALL MEETINGS

All material in this Bulletin may be reprinted if properly credited - Exchange Bulletins are most welcome.

****************************************************************************************

OFFICERS AND BOARD OF DIRECTORS (2019):

President Vice President Secretary Treasurer Federation Director Director at Large Mineral Council Reps Newsletter - Editor Current Past President

****************************************************************************************

****************************************************************************************

Brooke Babcock Annette Nelson Sue Fox Audrey Vogelpohl Audrey Vogelpohl Ken Schmidt (Open) Mike Wall Scott Ryan

(360) 305-8106 (206) 379-3677 (206) 835-0774 (206) 932-3292 (206) 932-3292 (206) 932-3626

(206) 476-6471 (206) 354-2101

Sue Fox Annette Nelson <Vice President> Sue Fox Mary Bentler Audrey Vogelpohl Erin Thompson <Open> Donn Ullery

(206) 835-0774 (206) 379-3677

<Vice President> (206) 835-0774 (206) 932-6108 (206) 932-3292 (253) 307-1589

<Open> (206) 550-1318

October 2019 West Seattle Petroglyphs Page 2

****************************************************************************************

CLUB CALENDAR

October 23, 2019

Junior Meeting — (6:15 pm)

Program: Fossils

General Meeting (6:45 pm)

6:45 - Meet & Greet

7:00 - Business Meeting Start Time

Program: La Brea Tar Pits (Annette Nelson)

Shown-n-Tell: Fossils

Hello fellow Rockhounds, I hope everyone is enjoying the fall weath-er, it sure came quick this year. A group of us went over to Saddle Mountain at the end of last month and that was quite an adven-ture. The weather was really cold, windy and pretty miserable but we had a great time and found some good material. Great turn out and thanks everyone for participat-ing. Its times like these outings that make us a strong club. We plan on having month-ly field trips to different places, keep an eye out for announcements. We need to start planning our holiday party and are in need of a holiday party chair per-son to coordinate food, activities and the venue. If you are interested please let me know asap. The holiday party in December will be in place of the regular meeting and the date might differ from the regular meet-ing time. We all appreciate the support. Happy Fall! Brooke Babcock, WSRC President

PRESIDENT’S

MESSAGE

WHAT’S

INSIDE

Club Calendar 3

President’s Message 3

What’s Inside 3

WSRC Board — 2020 Nominations 3

WSRC Sept. Gen. Meeting Minutes 4

WSRC’s Petroglyphs and Logo 5

WSRC Rockhound of the Year 6

Electroforming 6

Safety Matters — Is Safety Enough? 8

October’s Birthstone — Opal, Variety

Hyalite 9

2019 Refreshments 9

2019 Field Trips 10

2019 Shows 10

October 2019 West Seattle Petroglyphs Page 3

WSCR BOARD —

2020 NOMINATIONS

The nominating Committee would like to bring for-ward the following proposed Nominees: Brooke Babcock: President Annette Nelson: Vice President Audrey Vogel: Treasurer Don McDonald: Secretary Ken Schmidt: Director at Large

WEST SEATTLE ROCK CLUB –

GENERAL MEETING MINUTES

September 25, 2019

Business: The meeting was called to order by President Brooke Babcock. 16 adult members, 6 junior members and 3 guests present. Members Rich Babcock, Don MacDonald, Maggie Babcock, and Ezra Babcock won the door prizes. Membership Applications are available. No recently new members in attendance to pick up their name badges. No changes reported to the August meeting minutes.

Committees: Junior Advisor Coordinator (Annette Nelson):

Junior program was “Blue Rocks”, utilizing the Diamond Dan workbook. This topic is one that was decided upon by the junior board.

Northwest Federation (Audrey Vogelpohl):

The Portland Regional Gem and Mineral Association Show is October 11-13.

The NWF Convention is October 18-20 in Lewiston, ID. Audrey is attending as a delegate – 1 addi-tional delegate space available.

Update on recent 7-day NW Rockhound Retreat.

Editor's report (Mike Wall): Info is due 2nd Wednesday of the month. Will get next month’s newsletter out earlier.

Washington Mineral Council (Kat Koch): not in attendance

Librarian (Erin Thompson): There are books to borrow! The Vogelpohl’s donated two tonight. Erin will check to see if the list is on the website and if it needs updating; The book list can occasionally be printed in the Petroglyph’s.

Refreshments for the meetings (Sue Fox):

Thank you to Erin Thompson for bringing snacks; Sign-up sheet routed.

Historian (Audrey Vogelpohl): If you’ve taken photos on the field trips, please email to Audrey.

Field Trips and Shows:

see Petroglyphs (last page)

Old Business: Nominating Committee for 2020 officers

The committee (Scott, Diane, & Rich) will announce their nominees in the October newsletter, in preparation for elections in November

Looking for a new treasurer (board member), Committee chair for snacks/drinks, and fieldtrip coordi-nator

New Business: Next Board Meeting: Wednesday, October 2nd, 7pm at the Babcock’s house.

Program: Rock Bingo

Show and Tell — “What did you find this summer?” (* designates recipient of Displayer’s prize)

Lyle Vogelpohl – an opal pendant which will be sent to a NW Rockhound retreat attendee; wire wrapped cabs, holly blue agate cab, turritella cab, displayer’s prize will be a piece of holly blue agate

(Continued on page 5)

October 2019 West Seattle Petroglyphs Page 4

October 2019 West Seattle Petroglyphs Page 5

Audrey Vogelpohl – a “camp mom” pendant (enamel on metal) given to her by a longtime NW Rock-hound retreat attendee

Lola Smith: angelite

Ezra Babcock: half geode with pretty banding, bog wood found at Saddle Mt, tigers eye cab made this weekend

Maggie Babcock: cab pendant, petrified wood from saddle mountain, crystals from red top

Rich Babcock – red top trip – half a nodule pried off the side of a mountain and a piece from red from 2018 trip

Brooke Babcock*: pet wood from saddle mountain, Hansen creek crystals (including a scepter)

Annette nelson: blue rocks – celestite, angelite, blue calcite, chrysocolla, larimar, blue lace agate, blue goldstone (man-made and sharp), granite with azurite (K2), sodalite, lapis

Erin Thompson: Olympic peninsula Murdock beach concretions, variolitee, Beaver Valley quarry zeo-lites

Mike Wall: Bruno jasper

Zoe Ryan: copper found in school’s parking lot

Scott Ryan: Westside Seattle newspaper article about Burien’s dinosaur (reproduction of a skeleton found when building Sea Tac airport); sand collection (some Oregon, red sand from Prince Edward Island)

Ken Schmidt: latest batch of tumbled rocks (lots of broken thundereggs)

The meeting was adjourned; Respectfully Submitted by Sue Fox, WSRC Secretary

(Continued from page 4)

WSRC’S PETROGLYPHS

AND LOGO

By Audrey Vogelpohl, WSRC Historian Creating a logo is not easy, especially if you want to tell a story. Our club logo was designed for instant recognition that we are West Seattle Rock Club. WSRC was organized from a group of West Seattle residents attending the North Seattle Lapidary and Mineral Club meetings. There were 15 charter mem-bers who met formally for the first meeting on Janu-ary 21 1965. Our first show was July 15-16 in 1967. Our news bulletin, the West Seattle Petro-glyphs, was started in 1966 with Guy Michael as edi-tor. And it is believed that Guy was prominent in creating our logo. To view our logo, it is placed on the first page of each Petroglyphs. And what do the symbols signify? The crossed pick and shovel are internationally recog-nized as a sign of rock mining. The person and foot-print are symbols of the earlier people that used these implements. Sun is giving rays of light to all things on the earth. The last symbol could be the top of a totem pole, recognizing our West Seattle natives .. the Du-

wamish Tribe. To summarize, a petroglyphs is an image created by removing parts of a rock's surface. An image is ar-rived by scraping the brown varnish seeping from the living rock. Other images are created by scratching into the surface of the stone. This is the way that ear-ly history was recorded. And you will be viewing this

article in Volume 54, Number 9, of the West Seattle Petroglyphs.

October 2019 West Seattle Petroglyphs Page 6

WSRC — ROCKHOUND

OF THE YEAR

Executive Board of the West Seattle Rock Club has selected Ron Nims as its Rockhound of the Year. Besides creating T-shirts for our members, Ron has supported our annual show by creating a "movie corner". With a set-up beneath a canopy, chairs are provided for viewing geology related videos. Chairs are also welcomed by show guests looking for a place to rest their bodies af-ter viewing display cases, demonstrators, dealers, and the silent auction. A place to sit awhile, and a movie to watch, can be found at our show --THANKS to RON NIMS.

ELECTROFORMING by Sidney Welsh, age 10, Sidney@teamsidney,com Recently, I went to Maker Faire (San Francisco) and saw a table with some cool stuff about electroform-ing. I bought a kit and I thought it would be cool to write a Rocky Trails article.

What is Electroforming?

Electroforming is the process of using chemicals to deposit metal (in our case, copper) onto any object. This is different than electroplating, which is the pro-cess of depositing a thinner layer of metal onto an already metal object. You need to make your object conductive to do this. The electroforming kit that we bought supplies graphite paint to apply to your object to make it conductive. The acorns in the picture

above were painted fully with graphite, but you do not have to coat your entire piece. Then, you sub-merge your object in a copper sulfate solution and pass an electric current through it. A thick copper wire is used as the anode, and your object is the cath-ode. As the copper ions pass from the solution to your piece, they build up on your piece and coat it with a layer of copper. Then, you can take your piece out of the solution, clean it, polish it, or patina it to make it look old. What kinds of things can you Electroform?

Since there is no heat involved in the process, you can electroform almost anything, as long as you can calculate its surface area and it fits in your container easily. Since this a Rocky Trails article, I will be us-ing mostly crystals to demonstrate, but you can use this for whatever you want. For example, you can electroform leaves, acorns, rocks, 3D printed objects, pine cones, or your finger (not recommended!). The larger your object, the longer it takes to electroform, but the process goes by surprisingly fast, and you can see the copper “growing” on your piece. It could take up to several hours, depending on the size of your piece and the desired quality. Overview of the process

We are using an electroforming kit from Enchanted Leaves (enchantedleaves.com), which contains eve-rything you need to electroform at home! You will need a power supply capable of providing up to 1 amp at 12VDC. A bench power supply is recom-mended, but they also sell small plug-in adjustable power supplies that will do the job. (1) Prepare your piece To prepare items you would like to electroform, you can use a sealant such as polyurethane lacquer to prevent the graphite paint from soaking into your piece. Anything below 7 on the Mohs hardness scale definitely needs to be sealed. You can super-glue on a ring or an-chor of any sort, even if you don’t want an an-chor in the finished piece. (2) Graphite paint In order to electroform, you need to make your piece conductive and you can do so by ap-plying a layer of graph-ite paint. Again, it is included in the kit. The copper ions will stick onto anything conduc-

(Continued on page 7)

Sidney applying graphite paint to a crystal

October 2019 West Seattle Petroglyphs Page 7

tive, so make sure you apply your graphite paint care-fully. In the case of the crystal necklaces I’ve been making, I’ve been putting tape on the end of the crys-tal to only coat one end in graphite paint. You can use rubbing alcohol to thin the paint and remove ex-tra. (3) Electroform The electroforming process begins when the piece is sub-merged in a copper sulfate solution. Then, electricity is used to coax the copper ions from the solution onto the piece. In order to do this, hang your piece from a copper wire, making sure the wire touches the conduc-tive paint. Take a thick copper wire and wrap it in a spi-ral, placing it in a container and pour the solution over it. Submerge the piece in the solution, making sure that the entire area to electroform is covered, and that the two wires are not touching. Take the copper wire connecting to the piece and wrap it around a wooden dowel, suspending it over the container. Hook the two wires up to your power supply and turn it on. Use the equation below to calculate the amperage re-quired:

0.1 amps x 1 square inch of surface area that you want to electroform

Use at least 12 volts. (4) Finishing Even if your piece looks ready to take out of the solu-tion, leave it in for a while longer to get a nice thick coat. The total time depends on the size of the piece, but could be several hours. Once it’s done, turn off the power supply, pull your piece out of the solution, rinse it immediately in clean water and dry carefully. Filter the solution by pouring it through a coffee fil-ter. You can reuse it many times. Once it is suffi-ciently dry, use a piece of steel wool to shine up your piece. If you want it even shinier, you can use a polish. If you want it to look oxidized and antique, you can use a patina such as liver of sulfur. For this, you dip your piece into a solution of water and liver of sulfur gel, and then neutralize it using baking soda and water. Once you are happy with the look, wash off your piece thoroughly and you can use another layer of sealant on it if you like.

(Continued from page 6)

The electroforming process. The blue solution is copper

sulfate.

I hope you enjoyed this quick introduction to electro-forming. To learn more, visit enchantedleaves.com/electroforming.

———————————————————-

Sidney’s article prompted the Rocky Tails editor (Susan Gardner) to do a search for electroforming jewelry. It gets interesting.

Annie Laura Handmade’s process: deposit the cop-per metal on polymer clay via electroforming!

(Continued on page 8)

Before applying patina.

After applying patina of liver of sulfur.

October 2019 West Seattle Petroglyphs Page 8

SAFETY MATTERS — IS

SAFETY ENOUGH?

by Ellery Borow, AFMS Safety Chair A Difficult Topic It is a difficult topic to talk about, especially in polite so-ciety. It's rife with uncomfort-able situations. It's dripping with implications. Its also life-saving. What is it? It's sweat, or rather perspiration.

Our bodies sweat, pardon me, we perspire for numer-ous reasons. But they all lead to the same result, we lose valuable water, salt, and various other chemis-tries. There are times we don't know we are perspiring, Such as after we have been swinging the 15 pound sledge hammer for a while and the perspiration starts entering our eyes causing us to lose the ability to see what we are trying to hit with the hammer. So, what do we do then? We wipe our brow, dry our eyes, and go back to swinging. We have, after all, a good meas-ure of passion in our hobby. It's usually a while later when we decide we are thirsty and take a break to replenish ourselves with a drink of water, but by then, we are already dehydrat-ed. When we are thirsty, we are already dehydrated. Our body is already unbalanced by lack of precious water. I'd like to make a case for drinking water before we are thirsty, making a case for drinking as we go, ra-ther than waiting till we feel thirsty. When we antici-pate engaging with an activity likely to cause perspi-ration, I'd like to make a case for keeping handy a bottle, a cooler, a thermos, an ice chest, a Thermos, an insulated bag or whatever containing a sufficient quantity of bottled water. If one is to perform the perspiration-causing activity indoors, perhaps dis-playing a reminder sign nearby with the single salient words "Drink Water" would be in order. That might remind us to frequently utilize nearby sources of drinking water. Keeping our bodies hydrated is important for just about everything we do - thinking, digesting, cardio vascular activity, movement and joints, and so on. If we are unbalancing our bodies with lack of water, we are making whatever activity with which we are en-gaging that much more difficult. For our bodies’ sake, drink up!

(Continued on page 9)

www.beadinggem.com/2017/10/copper- electroformed-on-polymer-clay.html

www.sherrihaab.com/ pages/electroforming

YouTube has videos to show you how, as well.

(via Rocky Trails, 10/19)

(Continued from page 7)

This look uses the traditional form of “jewelry” electroplating.

October 2019 West Seattle Petroglyphs Page 9

One other important consideration is what we drink. While soda, soft drinks, pop, coffee, energy drinks, tea, alcohol-including drinks, all contain water, they also contain other chemistries, chemis-tries which affect our bodies. Pure water is hard to beat for optimum performance in most situations. For one thing, the other drinkable options have additional chemistries, ones which alter how we process the drink. They add work to the process. Water is simpler. When thirst calls, water answers. Before thirst arrives, please drink up and replenish your body. Keep your body at optimum operational levels. Drink and be cool. Safety is more than wearing eyeglasses, and gloves. It's also about staying healthy as we partici-pate in our hobby. Your safety matters, always! (via AFMS Newsletter, 9/19)

(Continued from page 8)

2019

REFRESHMENTS

Note: The signup sheet is available at our meetings. Please signup. Thanks to everyone for bringing re-freshments!

October Snacks: Jess & Don MacDonald (30-40) Drinks: Annette Nelson (30-40)

———————————————————-

Next Month (November)

Snacks: Mary Bentler (30-40)

Drinks: Stephanie Perry (30-40)

frosting on a cake) with botryoidal globs, like chal-cedony, but not as hard. It can form in fresh air, as it has on the rocks at Jamestown which were exposed during mining fluorite. My favorite opals are cherry opals from Mexico, usually an orangish, fiery red, perhaps cut when still imbedded in the pink rhyolite. I have a faceted stone for which I paid 50¢, set in a custom-made ring with three small diamonds (my only diamonds) and a cabochon in pink rhyolite set in a custom-made gold pendant. Querétaro (pronounced ké re tar oh), locat-ed in the central part of Mexico, experienced an “opal rush” from 1965 until 1975 (about when I purchased my stones). Apparently, opals were sold by the sackfuls by thousands of miners in the area. As with everything, that prosperous time ended about ten years later and today opals of the same gem quality are much harder to find. Next year we will discuss man made opal! Stay Tuned! References:

Eckel, Edwin, et. al., 1997, Minerals of Colorado, pp.

351-353

https://www.jtv.com/library/article/gemstone-opal-fire

Loomis, Frederic, 1923, Field Guide to Rocks and

Minerals, pp. 108-110

Wikipedia - Opal, via Tips and Chips 10/18

(via Golden Spike News, 10/19)

OCTOBER’S BIRTH-

STONE OPAL, VARIETY —

HYALITE

by Beth Simmons Opal doesn’t occur in Colorado! Or does it? Sure it does! We have even collected it! At Jamestown, where we go on fluorescent mineral collecting nighttime trips with Pete. In vein deposits. In petri-fied wood. As coatings in hot springs and in caves. Even on North Table Mountain where it coats other minerals. But its not gem quality. What causes the bright green fluorescence we see at Jamestown? A trace of uranium. On Table Moun-tain minerals, the coating will fluoresce bright yel-low-green. So you should examine your minerals from NTM with a black light! Hyalite also forms a coating on barite from Stoneham and in Agate Creek south of Hartsel. Where does the hyalite opal come from? Opal is “amorphous,” meaning without crystal shape. Its chemistry is silicon dioxide (quartz) with water imbedded between the molecules. Like chalcedony, another amorphous silicon dioxide, opal forms when hot acidic water seeps through volcanic rocks or other porous materials rich in silica and creates a gel (think silica caulking) which eventually hard-ens. Hyalite opal forms relatively quickly and the spheres of silica rarely have time to settle into the diffraction grids that create play-of-color in fire opal. So hyalite is a “secondary” mineral, (think

How Can You Help

Your Federation: Save stamps and give to our club treasurer.

Your Hobby: Join ALAA. - Contact Lyle Vogelpohl

Other: Volunteer to teach beginners what you are good at.

To Learn More About ...

Cabbing … contact Lyle Vogelpohl … (206) 932-3292

2019 SHOWS

Oct 26 10am-6pm Bellevue Rock Club “Octoberfest of Gems” Oct 27 10am-5pm Vasa Park, 3560 West Lake Sammamish Pkwy, Bellevue, WA

Nov 9 9am-5pm Skagit Rock & Gem Club “Treasures of the Earth” Annual Rock & Gem Show Nov 10 10am-4pm Sedro Woolley Community Center, 703 Pacific St., Sedro Woolley, WA

Nov 9 9am-5pm Maplewood Rock and Gem Club Annual Show Nov 10 10am-5pm Maplewood Rock & Gem Clubhouse, 8802 196th St SW, Edmonds, WA

Dec 7 9am-5pm Maplewood Rock and Gem Club—Rock and Mineral Sale Dec 8 10am-5pm Maplewood Rock & Gem Clubhouse, 8802 196th St SW, Edmonds, WA

————————————————————————————————————— See the Northwest Newsletter for additional show listings and times.

Available online at: http://northwestfederation.org/newsletters.asp

October 2019 West Seattle Petroglyphs Page 10

2019 FIELD TRIPS

Nov 16 Host: Darr ington Rock Club Location: Blanchard Hill Meeting place/time: I-5 Exit 240 Gas Mart @ 9:00 am Material: WA Dalmation Stone/Cher t Tools: Hard rock tools Contact: Ed Lehman wsmced@hotmail.com h# (425) 334-6282 c# (425) 760-2786

————————————————————————————————————— See WSMC https://mineralcouncil.wordpress.com/ for additional field trips and detail updates—

Always check with the trip contact a week before the trip to get any updated information