[Rockhounds] List: New Subject

[Alpen at aol.com]

Teri,
 
I am very sorry to hear about your husband's cancer.  I sincerely wish  the 
best of success in beating it.
 
Here is some info I pulled from the internet a while ago before I travelled  
to Houston.  It's a bit long, but hopefully it will help.
 
In addition to this, I found lots of petrified wood in a creek that goes  
under I 45 on the way up to Huntsville from Houston.  There are several  roads 
that the creek intersects as it travels south, and it's a matter of poking  
around to find points of access.  I think I had good luck off of highway  242 just 
east of I 45.
 
Eric
 
 
THE BACKBENDER'S  GAZETTE JANUARY 2004 
Show  Committee Field Trip Report--November 15, 2004 
by Scott  Singleton 
As announced  in the October BBG and via the HGMS e-mail distribution  list, 
the Show  Committee held a fall field trip for the entire Club to show  our 
appreciation for the fine job everyone did during our  annual Show. The field 
trip was  held Saturday, November 15 and was at College Station. Fifteen Club 
 members 
and guests  attended along with seven Show Committee members. The  weather 
was very  pleasant for this November trip. 
We met at  an Exxon station on 2818 (the loop around the south side of town). 
 From 
there we  journeyed to our first stop, White Creek. We spent the entire 
morning  wandering 
down the  creek gathering all shapes, sizes, and types of petrified wood.  
Several 
people on  the field trip had not been to this locality before and were quite 
happy to  see 
relatively  large quantities of wood just waiting for someone to pick it up, 
and  they 
were more  than happy to oblige (see photos). I remember seeing at least two  
individuals 
(one being  Rick Rexroad) walking back from somewhere downstream totally  
soaked. 
I guess  some people like swimming anywhere and at any time of the  year! 
After  lunch, we hit a few localities that Carol Thompson had scouted out 
near Hwy  6 
and Hwy 21  in Bryan. These  areas are construction sites that have had the  
ground 
surface  plowed. There was no shortage of material. For an encore, we decided 
to  head 
back to  Turkey Creek, which is a popular location due to the proliferation 
of  material 
to be  found. We started at the Traditions Golf Course on Villa Maria where 
we  found 
a huge  Legume log (see photo). Temptation proved too great, so we went to a 
creek  on 
the golf  course that we had been to before but were chased out. This was a 
great  call 
because the  creek obviously had not been visited since the last heavy 
rainfall only  a 
week or so  before, and there was an abundance of material including several  
large 
pieces in  the 20-30 lb range. We finally were forced to stop when the sun 
set and  we 
could no  longer see. 
Most of the  specimens we found were related to Juniper, the Legume  family—
either 
Sequoia or  Cypress (I have  to investigate this), and tropical species of  
Alangium, 
Rhamnacinium (Buckthorn), and Walnut (Engelhardia group).  Specimens of Palm 
and  Snakewood were found at each stop. 
Dr. Tom  Yancey (A&M Geology Professor) feels the Yegua is similar to the  
overlying, 
upper  Eocene Jackson Group in that it consists of a series of  
transgressive/regressive 
episodes.  The marine facies are muddy in the maximum transgression and  
become 
more sandy  as the shoreline approached during the regression. Lignite coal 
was  deposited 
as the sea  started transgressing again, flooding the low-lying coastal  
plain. 
Petrified  wood is found below the lignite and sandy shoreline facies. In 
this  zone, 
leaf-bearing shale strata are plentiful and wood occurs  generally as logs. 
Dr. Yancey 
feels that  the Yegua at College  Station represents an estuarine environment 
where  a 
large river  fed abundant woody material to the shallow marine muds near the  
shoreline. 
These muds  were anaerobic below the mudline, so that the waterlogged  wood 
was  protected from oxygen and microbes as it rapidly became  buried. 
9 
THE BACKBENDER'S  GAZETTE JANUARY 2004 
The two  creeks in College Station (White and  Turkey) are eroded into the  
muddy 
marine  facies but have sandy facies (along with wood) on their flanks. The  
wood 
slowly  erodes out of the formation and breaks up into relatively small 
pieces as it  is 
transported  into the streams. Therefore, the fact that we see so many 
specimens of  a 
small  number of species only indicates that logs of that heritage are 
eroding out  nearby. 
A great  time was had by all on this field trip. The Show Committee plans to 
repeat  the 
fun this  spring when we will host another trip for the benefit of the Club. 
We hope  to 
see you all  then. 
Possibly the most consistent place to  find fossils is at what has long been 
called the "Whiskey Bridge" location. For many years the  Geology Departments 
of Texas A&M and Texas University and other college groups, along with  
numerous Rockhound Groups, public schools and many, many others, have come to  
Whiskey  Bridge to dig Invertebrate  Fossils and ALWAYS with success. Whiskey 
Bridge is actually the bridge on Texas Highway 21,  which crosses the Brazos River, 
between Bryan,  Texas in Brazos County  and Caldwell in Burleson County. 
To get to the  location, from Houston say, You travel West on  I.H. 290 
Northwest to State Highway 6, then North on Texas Highway 6 into or  around Bryan, 
Texas (there is a Bypass). You then turn West  Southwest on State Highway 21, 
headed toward Caldwell. The Stone City Bluff is the Western  bank of the 
Brazos  River just Northwest of  Whiskey Bridge. Once you cross the Brazos River  
Bridge, you will see where  cars for many years have been pulling off the road 
and circling back to a  parking area. From your car you walk back toward the 
Bride and down poison ivy  infested paths (why the dickens don't we all carry 
weed killer and end this  menace). The path will lead you somewhat East and 
then Northward and downward to  the West bank of the Brazos River. 
All along  this West bank of the Brazos River for hundreds if not thousands 
of  feet, the soil (which is harder than regular garden soil, but not too 
difficult  to get into) is infested with many species of Eocene Age shells. Middle 
Eocene  is something like 40 -45 MYA. 


In a message dated 8/7/2007 7:02:17 P.M. Mountain Daylight Time,  
rockhounds-request at lists.drizzle.com writes:

Date:  Tue, 7 Aug 2007 13:01:52 -0700 (PDT)
From: teresa jetter  <territoones1 at ameritech.net>
Subject: [Rockhounds] List: New  Subject
To: Ted at crystalgems.com,    "Rockhounds at drizzle.com: A  mailing list for
rock and gem collectors"     <rockhounds at lists.drizzle.com>
Message-ID:  <866842.48278.qm at web81714.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Content-Type:  text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1

Is there anything worth digging up  around the Houston
Area in Texas?
My husband was just diagnosed with a  rare form of
genetic cancer, Schlerosing Epthelioid Fibrosarcoma, 
(a  soft cell tissue cancer).  We will be going to
M.D.Anderson soon, and  we will stay there through out
his treatments.  
He wants me to go  and dig, and not have to stay in the
housing for ever, and if he feels like  it go and dig
too.
"A bad way to ask directions!~"  

We are  lively people who don't want to stay sick for
long periods of time!
Teri  J

If there are any of you who pray, Prayers would  be
appreciated.







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