The Ventura Gem & Mineral Society, Inc. (VGMS)

Gem, Mineral and Fossil Information 1996 Archive.

Table of Contents.

1. AUGUST - SALT;
2. SEPTEMBER - OLD IS NEW AT N.Y. MUSEUM;
3. OCTOBER/NOVEMBER - WORLD'S OLDEST MOSQUITO FOSSIL FOUND IN NEW JERSEY AMBER;
4. DECEMBER - "BIG AL" RETURNS TO WYOMING VIA MUSEUM EXHIBIT.

August.

SALT.
     You use salt everyday. Did you know that it is a mineral? Salt (common name) is a clear to opaque white crystaline rock. It consists of a single mineral Halite (sodium chloride - NaCl). Salt has been used by man for centuries. It is mentioned many times in the Bible. Roman soldiers were paid a salarium or a portion of salt. This is the origin of our word, salary.
     Ancient lands in the Middle East are crisscrossed by trails made by salt caravans. Some historians argue that the need for salt was the beginning of road building. Salt is as necessary to human existence as water and air. Salt was controlled and taxed by ancient governments. This led to smuggling and hijackings by bandits.
     About 10% of the salt we use comes from seawater, which is 3.5% dissolved salt. The rest is mined from rock salt deposits buried underground.
          from CFMS Newsletter 12/87,
          via The Rock Bag (OGMS), May 1996.

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September.

OLD IS NEW AT N.Y. MUSEUM.
     The fossil halls of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City are back in full business with the opening this summer of the Hall of Vertebrate Origins and the Wallach Orientation Center the last parts of a seven-year reorganization and renovation project.
     The museum claims the largest and most diverse array of vertebrate fossils anywhere, with more than 600 specimens (nearly 85 percent of them real fossils) housed in six halls, including also the Hall of Saurischian Dinosaurs, the Hall of Ornithischian Dinosaurs, and the Wallace Wing of Mammals and Their Extinct Relatives.
     The museum is at Central Park West and 79th Street, phone (212) 769-5800.
          Ventura County Star 8/25/96,
          via Susan Mulqueen.

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October/November.

WORLD'S OLDEST MOSQUITO FOSSIL FOUND IN NEW JERSEY AMBER By Phillip J. Hilts, New York Times.
     An American Museum of Natural History expedition to New Jersey has uncovered one of the richest deposits of amber ever found, with fossils of 100 previously unknown species of insects and plants trapped in the ancient fossilized tree sap.
     The fossils include a tiny bouquet of miniature flowers from an oak tree of 90 million years ago; the world's oldest mosquito fossil, with mouth parts tough enough to feed on dinosaurs; the oldest moth in amber, with mouth parts suggesting it was in transition from a biting insect to one that fed on the nectar of flowers; and the oldest biting black fly.
     The last is the only such insect known from the Cretaceous period. It may have tormented duckbills and other dinosaurs along with it's colleague in amber, the mosquito.
     Among the other finds from the New Jersey complex of sites are the oldest mushroom, the oldest bee and a feather that is the oldest record of a terrestrial bird in North America.
     Dr. David Grimaldi, curator and chairman of the entomology department at the American Museum of Natural History, who led the expedition to the secret New Jersey site, said the previously undescribed species, all extinct, were found in 80 pounds of amber drawn out of deep mud.
     The amber came from sites in central New Jersey where the clay is especially deep and rich.
     Most interesting to scientists is that the site has amber dating back 90 million to 94 million years. This means that all the amber-preserved species came from the age of the dinosaurs and from the era when flowers first began to proliferate.
     At the time, insects were beginning to use flowers as food, and flowers found the insects useful in carrying pollen from flower to flower.
     An article describing the world's oldest preserved flowers, written by Grimaldi and his colleagues Kevin Nixon and William Crepet of Cornell University, will be published in the American Journal of Botany.
     It notes that the three flowers in the little bouquet are the only known flowers preserved from the Cretaceous period, which ended 65 million years ago.
     One reason the fossil flowers are important is that the flowering plants that arose during the Cretaceous eventually took over the Earth's continents.
     Until now, the study of plants from the Cretaceous has depended solely on impressions flowers and pollen made in rock.
     The new finds also raise the problem of what to do with the specimens. People have valued and studied creatures in amber - ants, bees, scorpions, lizards, frogs - for several thousand years. In the last few years, scientific interest has grown in the DNA locked inside the creatures inside the amber. But should the amber be cracked open?
     Biologists disagree about how to handle amber specimens - whether to open them to get at their DNA, how to open them and whether there should be some rules guiding new expeditions and the use of existing collections. Several thousand such specimens contain the only example of now-extinct species and so are true biological treasures.
     Grimaldi urges caution, saying, "The possibility of studying DNA in amber fossils is exciting but also represent a serious problem.". Grimaldi says no specimens in amber should be tampered with unless they are quite common and others of the same species, era and location can be found to replace them. Further, because the art of extracting DNA from amber fossils is just being developed, it is likely that for every success, three of four specimens will be damaged with no useful information gained.
          The Petrified Log, September 1996,
          via M.M.S Conglomerate 3/96,
          via The Detroit Free Press.

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December.

"BIG AL" RETURNS TO WYOMING VIA MUSEUM EXHIBIT (Excerpts from UW News, 3-96).
     While stalking it's prey on a Wyoming floodplain 145 million years ago, one of the earth's most fearsome predators came to a sudden demise.

The fossil remains of this predator, a young adult allosaurus dinosaur, were uncovered in 1991 on Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land near Shell in northern Wyoming. The only skeletal cast of the 25-ft. long Allosaurus--named "Big Al" by paleontologists who worked at the site--is now on display at the UW Geological Museum. The Allosaurus walked on it's hind legs, had short arms with three fingers, and could grow to 40 ft. long and weigh two tons.

"Big Al is a unique treasure that is contributing to our understanding of dinosaurs and prehistoric life in Wyoming", Brent Breithaupt, Geological Museum director, says. "This is the most complete carnivorous dinosaur ever found in Wyoming. It is a unique specimen because the bones were articulated (all attached) in life position.

"After the fossil discovery, BLM's primary concern was to protect the bones, but we also wanted to make sure that Wyoming citizens would have a chance to see Big Al," Al Pierson, BLM Wyoming state director, says. "The cooperative effort between BLM and the Museum of the Rockies fulfilled both objectives. We're thrilled that the cast of Big Al will be reviewed for years to come at the University of Wyoming."

It took eight days to uncover "Big Al" and prepare it for shipment to the laboratory. Site supervisor Robert Harmon instructed the excavation team to use small hand tools to expose as much of the skeleton as possible. All bones were given field identification numbers, and their locations at the site were mapped. Paleontologists treated the skeleton using the latest chemical preservatives. The bones were "blocked" in field jackets using plaster-soaked burlap wraps that made a hard-shell, protective cast.

     Reprinted from THE NUGGET July 1996,
     VIA CFMS Newsletter - November 1996.

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