[Rockhounds] Sleeping in bad places
Rock Currier
rockcurrier at cs.com
Wed Nov 28 14:28:09 PST 2007
Usually the worst accommodations I encountered while chasing mineral
specimens were at the mines in Peru and Bolivia. Most of the specimen
producing mines in those countries are located high up in the Andes.
Elevations range from 12 to 16 thousand feet with a few higher. At these
elevations there vegetation is sparse and at most of the mines you have to
look carefully to find any at all. It would usually take me two or three
days at those altitudes to be able to sleep comfortably at night. It would
help if you could first spend a day or so at 8 or 9 thousand before going on
up. Some of the accommodations at the mines were rather primitive. On trip
to Huanzala, a mine in Peru that is famous for its production of pyrite
specimens, I spent a couple of nights in a little shack like hotel just
outside the mining camp where the rent was a dollar or two a night and it
only cost that much because we were driving our own vehicle and were
therefore automatically rated as millionaires. The floor of our shack was
dirt with a corrugated iron roof. There were holes in the roof because the
corrugated covering had been used on at least one previous building and the
nail holes had never been fixed and you could see stars through them at
night. The wind blew in rather freely and empty chicken coops were stored
under our beds. The mattress was just ropes attached to the tree limb poles
that made up the frame of the bed. The bathroom was a little stream of water
that had been channeled into the back yard of the hotel from a local creek.
>From the wash area the stream was channeled underneath the toilet stall. The
toilet was a cut down 30 gallon carbide can that had part of its top knocked
out with a chizel. That was bad enough, but as we drove into the camp we
encountered a truckload of runners (specimen dealers from lima on their way
out of the camp. They had just about cleaned out the camp of specimens. We
got about enough to pay for our gas and the rental on the vehicle.
Rock
Rock Currier
rockcurrier at CS.com
Jewel Tunnel Imports
13100 Spring St.
Baldwin Park, CA 91706
626-814-2257
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Subject: Rockhounds Digest, Vol 42, Issue 31
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[Rockhounds-Digest]
Today's Topics:
1. RE: Vehicles (Margaret Malm)
2. RE: Fluorescent glass & Fiesta Ware / ice
crystals/icespikes/Kryptonite (Axel Emmermann)
3. Re: Accommodations (Was: Vehicles) (Alan Silverstein)
4. Re: Fluorescent glass & Fiesta Ware / ice
crystals/icespikes/Kryptonite (J Bryan Kramer)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2007 12:24:34 -0700
From: "Margaret Malm" <kadok at infowest.com>
Subject: RE: [Rockhounds] Vehicles
To: "'Rockhounds at drizzle.com: A mailing list for rock and gem
collectors'" <rockhounds at lists.drizzle.com>
Message-ID: <002101c8312b$24ed8600$0200a8c0 at kadok>
Content-Type: text/plain;charset="US-ASCII"
<:-}}!! Around this neck of the woods, we call that a "winch", Glenn <;-))))
Margaret
>If things go as planned, I'll add a wench on the front and carry a small
>grappling style anchor to pull thru spots I'll likely never go. (No Axel,
>Jeanette rides shotgun and navigates with the GPS and laptop.)
Glenn
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2007 19:39:16 +0100
From: "Axel Emmermann" <axel.emmermann at pandora.be>
Subject: RE: [Rockhounds] Fluorescent glass & Fiesta Ware / ice
crystals/icespikes/Kryptonite
To: "'Rockhounds at drizzle.com: A mailing list for rock and gem
collectors'" <rockhounds at lists.drizzle.com>
Message-ID: <002f01c83124$d063bc40$6401a8c0 at AxelHP>
Content-Type: text/plain;charset="iso-8859-2"
Hi Erich,
Maria Salomee Sk³odowska, AKA Madame Curie, died at age 66 of leukemia. She
lived in an exiting epoque in which radioactivity was discovered.
In her time it was fashionable to decorate a garden party with blue
radioluminescent vials containing radiumnitrate. She also wore a neclace
with a minut vial of the stuff... After a few weeks her bosom must have
looked like Kentucky fried chicken. Of course, If you don't know you don't
know! Showing cleavage was not really fashionable around the turn of the
19th century so it would have been her "hidden problem".
Dose may be a killing factor but prolongued exposure is also dangerous. Some
Russian chrysoberyl is moderately radioactive and although the crystals do
not appear to be very metamict there is measurable radiation coming from
those specimens. The gem, when used in pendants, is know to cause cancer of
the thyroid gland an throat.
It appears that the red and orange fiestaware is colored by uranium too (it
came as waste from the enrichment plants). Vaseline glass is clored by UO2
(uranyl). The orange die is probably also another oxide than the divalent
yellow-green stuff....
Cheers
Axel
> -----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
> Van: rockhounds-bounces at lists.drizzle.com
> [mailto:rockhounds-bounces at lists.drizzle.com] Namens Erich Kern
> Verzonden: dinsdag 27 november 2007 17:33
> Aan: Rockhounds at drizzle.com: A mailing list for rock and gem
> collectors
> Onderwerp: Re: [Rockhounds] Fluorescent glass & Fiesta Ware /
> ice crystals/icespikes/Kryptonite
>
>
> Hi All,
>
> The orange glaze on Fiesta Ware is radioactive. An antique
> dealer told me about the radiologic tech who bought a large
> orange Fiesta Ware platter to demonstrate to his classes that
> not everything that sets off a Geiger counter is dangerous.
> He has his wife make a big batch of chocolate chip cookies
> which he serves to his class on the orange platter, then
> brings out the Geiger counter on its most sensitive scale to
> let the class hear the counter chirp away. As toxicologist
> Dr. Bruce Ames says, "the dose makes the poison". I bought a
> small orange Fiesta Ware bowl from this antique dealer to use
> for demonstrations. The bowl doesn't fluoresce with LW U/V.
>
> The "vaseline glass" made by Fenton fluoresces brightly in LW
> U/V and gives a response on the most sensitive scale of my
> Geiger counter, but not quite as much as with the orange
> glazed bowl. The Fenton glass bowl I have was made in the
> 1930's, and they're still in business, but don't know if
> their current production contains any radioactive or
> fluorescent material given the hysteria of some people about
> "radioactive".
>
> Cheers,
> Erich
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Axel Emmermann
> To: 'Rockhounds at drizzle.com: A mailing list for rock and gem
> collectors'
> Sent: Tuesday, November 27, 2007 1:40 AM
> Subject: RE: [Rockhounds] Re: ice crystals/ice spikes/Kryptonite
>
>
> >
> > BTW Axel, the marbles are actually made of the glass you
> describe. Was
> > not that actually radioactive in the early days when it was used as
> > attractive tableware? Seems I remember another discussion of this
> > yellow-green glass and carnival glass on this list. And
> they are, at
> > least by poetic license, "real" Kryptonite.
>
> Hi Glenn,
>
> Uranium oxide is a VERY powerful colorant in glass. Probably
> due to the fluorescence even in normal daylight. Since there
> is only very little of the oxide used and it 's not
> "enriched", the radioactivity of the glass may be very low.
>
> Axel
>
> --
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------------------------------
Message: 3
Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2007 12:47:13 -0700 (MST)
From: Alan Silverstein <ajs at frii.com>
Subject: Re: [Rockhounds] Accommodations (Was: Vehicles)
To: rockhounds at lists.drizzle.com
Message-ID: <20071127194713.DEBA71CC35 at io.frii.com>
> ...weirdest, most primitive (or high-end), most dangerous or coolest
> place that members have camped, boarded or otherwise racked out during
> a rockhound trip.
Well I've slept on mountaintops 23 times, mostly 13K-14K' elevation in
Colorado, but those were "hiking trips," not mainly rockhounding trips.
My oddest overnight during primary rockhounding must have been... In my
car, reclined in the driver's seat; along with maybe 8 other people in
4-5 other cars, all huddled up in rain and wind so long and intense that
even a tent was a bad idea; up high on the Delaney Rim, just south of
I80 in Wyoming south of Wamsutter, on the south edge of the Red Desert /
Great Divide Basin (of the continental divide).
The cars all had condensation running down the insides by morning; 110%
humidity. But cold and wet wasn't the worst of it. The mud road had
turned into a virtual tarpit. We very slowly and carefully made our way
west several miles to the Tipton switchbacks and down several more miles
to the interstate. Vehicle undersides and wheelwells were terminally
caked with goo. It took me $6, I think, to get the worst of it off at a
manual carwash in Rawlins.
Cheers,
Alan Silverstein
------------------------------
Message: 4
Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2007 16:32:58 -0500
From: "J Bryan Kramer" <codeburner at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Rockhounds] Fluorescent glass & Fiesta Ware / ice
crystals/icespikes/Kryptonite
To: "Rockhounds at drizzle.com: A mailing list for rock and gem
collectors" <rockhounds at lists.drizzle.com>
Message-ID:
<e8cacd9a0711271332g38d6d2fbn79dbdc10b0338896 at mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-2
Well there is plenty of evidence that radiation effects, like many other
environmental 'threats' has been greatly exaggerated. Take a look at this
article in Der Spiegel
<http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,519162,00.html>
I have seen reports from more than a decade ago that debunk a lot of the
claims of radiation injuries. Indeed some studies show that people exposed
to moderately high levels of radiation have longer life expectancies not
reduced.
The Curies may well have ingested radium salts which have a well documented
health effect.
BK
On Nov 27, 2007 1:39 PM, Axel Emmermann <axel.emmermann at pandora.be> wrote:
> Hi Erich,
>
> Maria Salomee Sk³odowska, AKA Madame Curie, died at age 66 of leukemia.
> She
> lived in an exiting epoque in which radioactivity was discovered.
> In her time it was fashionable to decorate a garden party with blue
> radioluminescent vials containing radiumnitrate. She also wore a neclace
> with a minut vial of the stuff... After a few weeks her bosom must have
> looked like Kentucky fried chicken. Of course, If you don't know you don't
> know! Showing cleavage was not really fashionable around the turn of the
> 19th century so it would have been her "hidden problem".
>
> Dose may be a killing factor but prolongued exposure is also dangerous.
> Some
> Russian chrysoberyl is moderately radioactive and although the crystals do
> not appear to be very metamict there is measurable radiation coming from
> those specimens. The gem, when used in pendants, is know to cause cancer
> of
> the thyroid gland an throat.
>
> It appears that the red and orange fiestaware is colored by uranium too
> (it
> came as waste from the enrichment plants). Vaseline glass is clored by UO2
> (uranyl). The orange die is probably also another oxide than the divalent
> yellow-green stuff....
>
> Cheers
> Axel
>
>
> > -----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
> > Van: rockhounds-bounces at lists.drizzle.com
> > [mailto:rockhounds-bounces at lists.drizzle.com] Namens Erich Kern
> > Verzonden: dinsdag 27 november 2007 17:33
> > Aan: Rockhounds at drizzle.com: A mailing list for rock and gem
> > collectors
> > Onderwerp: Re: [Rockhounds] Fluorescent glass & Fiesta Ware /
> > ice crystals/icespikes/Kryptonite
> >
> >
> > Hi All,
> >
> > The orange glaze on Fiesta Ware is radioactive. An antique
> > dealer told me about the radiologic tech who bought a large
> > orange Fiesta Ware platter to demonstrate to his classes that
> > not everything that sets off a Geiger counter is dangerous.
> > He has his wife make a big batch of chocolate chip cookies
> > which he serves to his class on the orange platter, then
> > brings out the Geiger counter on its most sensitive scale to
> > let the class hear the counter chirp away. As toxicologist
> > Dr. Bruce Ames says, "the dose makes the poison". I bought a
> > small orange Fiesta Ware bowl from this antique dealer to use
> > for demonstrations. The bowl doesn't fluoresce with LW U/V.
> >
> > The "vaseline glass" made by Fenton fluoresces brightly in LW
> > U/V and gives a response on the most sensitive scale of my
> > Geiger counter, but not quite as much as with the orange
> > glazed bowl. The Fenton glass bowl I have was made in the
> > 1930's, and they're still in business, but don't know if
> > their current production contains any radioactive or
> > fluorescent material given the hysteria of some people about
> > "radioactive".
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Erich
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: Axel Emmermann
> > To: 'Rockhounds at drizzle.com: A mailing list for rock and gem
> > collectors'
> > Sent: Tuesday, November 27, 2007 1:40 AM
> > Subject: RE: [Rockhounds] Re: ice crystals/ice spikes/Kryptonite
> >
> >
> > >
> > > BTW Axel, the marbles are actually made of the glass you
> > describe. Was
> > > not that actually radioactive in the early days when it was used as
> > > attractive tableware? Seems I remember another discussion of this
> > > yellow-green glass and carnival glass on this list. And
> > they are, at
> > > least by poetic license, "real" Kryptonite.
> >
> > Hi Glenn,
> >
> > Uranium oxide is a VERY powerful colorant in glass. Probably
> > due to the fluorescence even in normal daylight. Since there
> > is only very little of the oxide used and it 's not
> > "enriched", the radioactivity of the glass may be very low.
> >
> > Axel
> >
> > --
> > _______________________________________________
> > Rockhounds at drizzle Mailing List
> > Subscription Services:
> > http://lists.drizzle.com/mailman/listinfo/rockhounds
> > List Home Page, with a link to the List Usage Policy:
> > http://www.eclecticlapidary.com/Rockhounds/index.html
> >
> >
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> > List Home Page, with a link to the List Usage Policy:
> > http://www.eclecticlapidary.com/Rockhounds/index.html
> >
>
>
> --
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--
J Bryan Kramer
North Florida, USA
photos at:
http://pbase.com/photoburner
------------------------------
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