[Rockhounds] Field Trip Report - Alabastine Mine - Again

[Pmodreski at aol.com]

Great that you could lead that field trip, Kreigh!
 
I was just re-reading your earlier field trip report--trying to remember if 
 you had any pictures posted anywhere, from the trip (I don't see any on 
your  website).  And I'm curious, what do the shark coprolites look like?   
(I'ld love to see a picture.)  And also I forget, do you know what the age  of 
this gypsum bed is?  Devonian perhaps?  (I know you had written to  me, 
Kreigh, looking for sources of geologic reports to look up more info on the  
history of the mine.)
 
Keep up the good work!
Pete
 
 
In a message dated 5/2/2009 10:10:04 P.M. Mountain Daylight Time,  
Kreigh at tomaszewski.net writes:

Back in  February I got to go collecting in the Alabastine Mine as a  
guest  with the Tulip City club. You can see the field trip report from   
that visit at   
http://lists.drizzle.com/pipermail/rockhounds/2009-February/028204.html.

Today  I got to return the favor and bring some members of the Tulip  
City  club, along with the Indian Mounds club, back into the Alabastine   
Mine for six hours of underground collecting.  It was a very  different  
experience being the leader of the trip (and the first  time I've led a  
trip underground).

A third of the rockhounds  were kids. Almost half of the rockhounds had  
never been underground  before. And I turned them loose in six miles of  
tunnels that have no  lights. I didn't sleep well last night because of  
all the things I  could imagine going wrong.

Like the last trip, they left the door open  for us. We ran the mine  
elevator ourselves. We did see an employee  this time, about five hours  
in, as he walked to the mine elevator  with a cart of something he was  
taking to the surface. The employee  ignored us. On our way out I locked  
the door and shut it (my  tracking showed everyone who came underground  
had left).

I  spent most of this trip wandering around the mine offering help to   
the new collectors. One of the rockhounds came out with an amazing  vug  
of perfect selenite crystals (to one inch) in a 50+ lb chunk of  rock  
that got hauled out on a dolly (after he got it back to the  lights and  
cement floor). One of the kids collected a box full of  shark coprolites  
from an unusually rich find that got everyone  excited.

While wandering around I managed to pick up two buckets of  decent  
selenite (massive pencil, not perfect vug crystals),  honey/salmon  
alabaster, and a little satin spar. I did my real  collecting back in  
February, so this was gravy. I had a pretty good  day collecting, but it  
was not my focus.

My real joy this  trip was the happy rockhounds, instead of the  
specimens. I was eight  the first time I got to visit a mine, and it  
made a lifelong  impression on me. Several of the rockhound families  
were taking  their first field trip.  Most of the kids were underground  
for  the first time. I have hopes I made a difference.

I had almost 50  rockhounds on the trip. More than a ton of rock was  
removed from the  mine. Everyone got out safely, and left smiling.

I was offered  permission to lead another trip at a time of my own  
choosing. It  doesn't get much better.

Kreigh

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