[Rockhounds] Re: As a Rockhound, do you know your home's elevation?

[pmodreski at aol.com]

Hi to the Rockhounds list,

Just writing one more slightly belated response to the "your home's elevation" thread...

I was embarassed not to know exactly my home's elevation in Wheat Ridge, CO; all I could remember is that it's somewhere between 5400-5500 feet--wondering if that was close enough?  (Most of the Denver metro area is a bit higher than the nominal "Mile High" that we brag about.)  So I finally looked it up on on topozone.com; looks like I am about 5440 give or take 10 feet--that's more accurate that I'd trust my GPS receiver to read.

I have aquamarine specimens (a few, anyway) that I've collected on Mt. Antero, so, checking a topo map, I think I've collected them at around 13,600', give or take a hundred feet--that's on the southwest ridge of Mt. Antero, there being, as collectors who go there know, no aquamarine higher than about 13,800' on the actual summit area (summit, 14,269).

I'd never thought much about a lowest place where I'd collected, but (not having collected minerals or fossils at very many sites along the coasts), one such would be Cliffwood Beach, New Jersey, a sea level site along the shore of Raritan Bay where Cretaceous marine fossils are (or used to be) found, along with pyrite/marcasite concretions--similar to (but not as nice looking as) the ones from the clay pits in not-too-far-away Sayreville NJ.  This is IF I have any of the pyrite concretions that have not all decomposed--as per the other recent thread here.  Amber is supposed to be found here too, though I never noticed any, back when I lived in NJ and collected here a few times (long time ago!).  The approx. location is,
40° 26' 48"N, 74° 12' 36"W (NAD83/WGS84)

I don't think I have any specimens dredged from the great depths, as Kreigh does.  But continuing on the theme of lowest places, here is a very interesting website, from geology.com, a tour of the lowest (below sea level) "dry land" places on earth.  It notes that "a total of 33 countries have land below sea level", and if you're up for a quiz, try naming the 10 lowest places (of dry land, not lake or sea bottoms) on the planet before you look at the answers:
http://geology.com/below-sea-level/
(hint, two of them are in the U.S., and the lowest one worldwide should be easy to guess...)

happy New Year to all,
Pete Modreski

-----Original Message-----
From: Ted Kowalski <Ted at crystalgems.com>
To: 'Rockhounds at drizzle.com: A mailing list for rock and gem collectors' <rockhounds at lists.drizzle.com>
Sent: Mon, 24 Dec 2007 8:17 am
Subject: RE: As a Rockhound, do you know your home's elevation? [WAS: Re: [Rockhounds] "list wherethe knowledge of many is shared freely"}



My house is at 270' above sea level and no, I don't have to look it up. I've
ired up my GPS and TOPO software here at home central to know how high I
m.
I prefer to dig or break rock wherever I can. I've dug at seal level and at
very level above that, well I haven't rock hounded above 10,000 feet yet,
ut I am still relatively young. I do prefer to dig in cool and breezy
laces, so I do have some preference for elevations; which here in the east
s anything above 1000 feet.
Ted Kowalski
redericksburg, VA USA


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