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Walt Wright Speaks on Petrified Wood for September Program Meeting

September 17, 2024 at 7:00 p.m.


Walt Wright is an expert botanist, ecologist, geologist, and paleobotanist from Brea, California. He has worked as a Naturalist for the U.S. Forest Service, and in education and research at the University of California, Riverside. He has written articles and given numerous classes, seminars, and lectures on how petrified wood is formed and identified. He has been collecting petrified wood since he was 10 years old, when his mother gave him a piece. To date, he has over 10,000 pieces in his collection.

This program meeting takes place on Tuesday, September 17, 2024, at 7:00 p.m. in the Fellowship Hall of The Santa Anita Church, 226 W. Colorado Blvd., Arcadia, CA 91007.

Come join us! Doors open at 6:30, admission is free; open to the public. Enjoy refreshments while checking out the display table; bring a rock specimen you’d like identified. We hope to see you there!

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Silicates Subject of August 20th Program Meeting

Our August 20th Program Meeting will feature a talk about Silicates, and the ways that simple tetrahedrons made of silicon and oxygen can form the multitude of silicate minerals (which, by the way make up the majority of Earth’s crust). This wlll be a chemist’s rumination on how much was missing from his “traditional” course on chemistry.

This program meeting starts at 7:00 p.m. in the Fellowship Hall of The Santa Anita Church, 226 W. Colorado Blvd., Arcadia, CA 91007. Come to learn and make new friends; open to the public, free admission. 

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Celebrating a Milestone

Commendation from the City of Pasadena in recognition of PLS’ 75th Anniversary.

For Pasadena Lapidary Society’s July 2024 meeting, we celebrated our 75th Anniversary as a California non-profit corporation, having incorporated in 1949. Several past club presidents were in attendance, and current PLS president David Lacy presented a Commendation from the City of Pasadena in recognition of our anniversary.

A Silent Auction was held featuring a variety of mineral slabs, specimens, jewelry and lapidary related items, and members enjoyed an Ice Cream Social as part of the festivities.

A beautiful gem tree, made by PLS
member Ferdie Sanchez, was on display.
Leaves are tourmaline chips, trunk copper wire, and base is opalized petrified wood.

Display cases containing members’ jewelry creations and specimen collections were on display for attendees to check out, while a slide show provided a glimpse into the Club’s past and present activities: annual shows, field trips, workshops, and community outreach for STEM/STEAM students. What a great evening we had!

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Australasian Tektites Explored with Paolo Sanchez at Tuesday, June 18th Program Meeting, 7:00 p.m.

The Laos Impact Expedition: Australasian Tektites and the Hunt for their Lost Source

Paolo Sanchez in Laos

Tektites, glass blobs formed from melting terrestrial material from a high-energy meteor impact, are found all over the world. More often than not, tektites seen in the gem and mineral market come from Southeast Asia and are a part of the larger Australasian tektite strewn field, an area covering around ten percent of Earth’s surface. Despite their prominence and over a century of research done on these glasses, their source crater has remained elusive until 2019, where researchers proposed the site of a 790,000-year-old meteor impact buried under ancient lava flows and jungles of southwestern Laos. Here, PLS member Paolo Sanchez delves into a recent expedition that he and other geoscientists took to examine the geology of the potential crater, and what they found (including a lot of tektites, of course).

Tektite

In the ongoing observance of our 75th anniversary as Pasadena Lapidary Society, member Nancy Robb will provide a presentation on the history of Junior Members of PLS over the years.

This program meeting takes place at 7:00 p.m. in the Fellowship Hall of The Santa Anita Church, 226 W. Colorado Blvd., Arcadia, CA 91007. 

Come join us! Admission is free; open to the public. Enjoy refreshments while checking out the display table; bring a rock specimen you’d like identified. See you there!

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Tuesday, May 21 Program Meeting, 7:00

For our May Rock of the Month talk, PLS member Nancy Robb will provide a slide presentation on Pasadena Lapidary Society’s annual shows held from the 1940s to the 2000s, in a continuation of our 75th Anniversary observance.

This program meeting takes place at 7:00 p.m. in the Fellowship Hall of The Santa Anita Church, 226 W. Colorado Blvd., Arcadia, CA 91007.

Admission is free; open to the public. Enjoy refreshments while checking out the display table; bring a rock specimen you’d like identified. See you there!

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Stone Stories — Rocks and the Legends Associated With Them

PLS member Janie Duncan is featured speaker for the April 16th Program Meeting; 7:00 pm

A chunk of Actinolite collected from a memorable
visit to Wrightwood. Photo courtesy E. Weston

Every stone has a story. Maybe it is how it was formed or why it has a specific shape or color. Sometimes a rock tells a story that is sentimental. Do you remember the day you found a rock or perhaps someone gave one to you as a gift? Some stones have ancient fables or myths passed down for hundreds of years attached to them. Almost everyone owns a few rocks that are special to them in some way. PLS member Janie Duncan will be our featured presenter as she discusses stones and the stories they tell.

This program meeting takes place on Tuesday, April 16, 2024 at 7:00 p.m. in the Fellowship Hall of The Santa Anita Church, 226 W. Colorado Blvd., Arcadia, CA 91007. Admission is free; open to the public. Enjoy refreshments while checking out the display table. Bring a rock specimen you’d like identified – or maybe you have a special memory attached to one that you can share while you’re at the meeting. Hope to see you there!

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Community Outreach Saturday March 16th

Pasadena Lapidary Society shared our love of rocks and lapidary at the Muir High School Science Fair this past weekend

(Left to right) PLS members David, Sue and Sasha

A lovely chessboard on display with other
lapidary artwork and rock specimens.

PLS member Barna, ready to talk rocks and geology.

Fluorescent mineral exhibit with UV light box.

Crystal structure poster

PLS members Barna (foreground) and Sasha (opposite).
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Meteorites Subject of March 19 Program Meeting with Dr. Nick Gessler

Pasadena Lapidary Society’s March 19, 2024 Program Meeting will feature Dr. Nicholas Gessler who will present his Meteorite program. In 2002 Dr. Gessler was honored by the designation of Mainbelt Asteroid “113355 Gessler.” 15 years later, at Duke’s Kunshan,
China campus, he hosted ‘Meteorites China’, the first international conference and exhibition of meteoritics in that country. That was emulated in 2018 by a similar conference in Jilin, China. He has discovered 13 named meteorites in California and Nevada and recovered over 1,400 fragments. Dr. Gessler continues to build a comprehensive private teaching collection, and has recently been involved in documenting the newly discovered ninth largest meteorite on Earth, named EL ALI, from Somalia. It weighs in at 15.15 tonnes and is characterized as a “IA iron.” Most likely no other meteorite has been so intimately connected with the life and fate of so many people as ‘EL ALI.” Although the meteorite is now for sale in China, with the help of colleagues at Almaas University of Mogadishu, 16 videos of it are being analyzed and there is a plan to do exploratory archaeology of its impact site near the Ethiopian border. https://people..duke.edu/”ng46/EL-Ali

PLS member Chris Kyte will provide this month’s Rock of the Month talk about Elestial, also known as Window Quartz, with a specific pattern of terminations that flow throughout the face and body of the crystal.

PLS member Nancy Robb will continue her talk on PLS’ history, this being our 75th Anniversary year. The program meeting takes place at 7:00 p.m. in the Fellowship Hall of The Santa Anita Church, 226 W. Colorado Blvd., Arcadia, CA 91007, on Tuesday, March 19, 2024. Come join us! Doors open at 6:30, admission is free; open to the public. Enjoy refreshments while checking out the display table; bring a rock specimen you’d like identified. Buy a raffle ticket for a few bucks and try your luck at winning a cool rock specimen, slab, or otherwise. We hope to see you there!

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Spotlight on Tumbling (Rocks, That is) for February 20th Program Meeting

Pasadena Lapidary Society (PLS) members provide this month’s program at 7:00 p.m. , Tuesday, February 20, 2024 — FIRESIDE ROOM (not Fellowship Hall) of the Santa Anita Church

Rock tumbling is the process of polishing rocks and minerals in a rock tumbler. This involves adding stones or minerals to the rock tumbler along with some abrasives, such as grit, fillers, and water. Phil Lahr will give a presentation on tumbling, discussing the basics – machines, grits, and processes involved. He will also have samples of rock polishing at various stages so you can see and feel the difference from one stage to the next. This is a great educational program for new rockhounds, and a refresher for older ones.

As part of our observance of PLS’ 75th Anniversary this year, Nancy Robb plans to continue her talk on PLS’ history.

Our Rock of the Month talk for February will be presented by Sue Pang as she discusses this month’s birthstone, Amethyst.

This program meeting takes place on Tuesday, January 20, 2024, at 7:00 p.m. in the (**DIFFERENT ROOM, SAME ADDRESS**) FIRESIDE ROOM of The Santa Anita Church, 226 W. Colorado Blvd., Arcadia, CA 91007. Come join us! Doors open at 6:30, admission is free; open to the public. Enjoy refreshments while checking out the display table; bring a rock specimen you’d like identified. We hope to see you there!

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QUARTZSITE Here We Come!


Pasadena Lapidary Society members will once again be joining the ranks of rockhounds and lapidarists across the nation – and beyond – in an annual sojourn to our ‘mecca’ of rocks – Quartzsite, Arizona. While this isn’t a fieldtrip that requires a rock hammer, shovel or other tools, it’s a great opportunity to see what wonderful gems and minerals exist in our world – all in one place. There are several gem and mineral shows which are held between December and late February in this town, which swells to over a million visitors in the month of January from a paltry 3,714 +/- residents the rest of the year. One of our favorite shows to check out is the QIA Pow Wow, which takes place from January 17 – 21, 2024, with free admission and free parking and way more than a day’s worth of treasures to see. It’s like a giant open air swap meet held under the beautiful blue sky with giant puffy white clouds floating overhead – which sometimes open up with a quick light rain or a heavy shower – then dissipates as quickly as it starts. Quartzsite is just 18 miles east of the California border, along Interstate 10. One can make it a full day trip, or if you’re able to secure lodging in Quartzsite, AZ or Blythe, CA, turn your visit into more than one day so you can visit the other shows taking place as well, such as Tyson Wells or Desert Gardens. If you prefer to take an RV and camp, there’s plenty of open space just on the outskirts of town. How to get there? Take I-10 East until you get to Quartzsite, about a four hour drive from Pasadena when traffic isn’t bad. We often make a quick stop at Chiriaco Summit either on the way to or from AZ, where one can fuel up and stop for a bite or snacks.

And the rockhound fun doesn’t stop with Quartzsite… read further about the big Tucson Show (the 2023 event is the subject of our January 16 Program Meeting) coming February 8-11, 2024.