Member
American Federation of
Mineralogical Societies
www.amfed.org
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Member
Rocky Mountain Federation of Mineralogical Societies
www.rmfms.org
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CMS
Members Jeff Self and Donna Ware featured on Colorado Public
Radio's Colorado Matters
CMS members Jeff Self and Donna Ware were featured in an interview
on the Colorado Matters program on Colorado Public
Radio. The recorded interview with Ryan Warner can be listened
to online via the CPR website at the link below, along with
a story and photos about them.
Click
Here for Interview
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here to download
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Upcoming
Events
2020
Field Trip Photos
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COVID-19
Update: Please do not attend field trips, meetings or events if
you are feelng ill or were exposed to someone who tested positive
within 14 days of the trip. We will observe physcial distancing
on all CMS sanctioned events or trips. |
Welcome to the Colorado Mineral Society
Celebrating
our 85th Year!
1936 - 2021
Saturday, January 9th, 2021
VIRTUAL CMS
General Meeting
6:30 pm (Mountain Time US and Canada)
Because our normal CMS meeting this Friday
occurs on a holiday, we have moved the virtual meeting to Saturday,
January 9th at 6:30pm MST (note earlier
time). Our speaker will be John Betts from New York,
which is why we moved to an earlier time since he is in the
east coast time zone. John will be talking about how to identify
minerals and it will be a continuation of Mark Jacobson's talk
from last month. John's presentation abstract and t he Zoom
link is provided below.
Our
virtual meetings are open to anyone, you do not have to be a
member to attend.
Click
here for Zoom Meeting link
You will need to download the Zoom app if you
don't already have it.
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Meeting
Presentation:
Identifying
Minerals
by John Betts
The
process of identifying minerals is like looking up the
spelling of a word in a dictionary: You have to know
the spelling in advance to find the word in the dictionary!
Books and web sites are full of facts about mineral
species. But they are organized by mineral species,
not by the attributes that we can observe.
What is needed is a process derived from the wisdom
and knowledge of practical experience. This lecture
will focus on three essential reference books, techniques
to narrow the possibilities when looking up references,
and how to approach identifying unknown minerals. It
will include some simple tests, using everyday items,
which you can perform quickly in your home.
Building on Mark Jacobsons previous lecture in
December 2020, How to Identify Colorado Minerals, Mr.
Betts addresses identifying minerals from any source.
You may not be able to identify every mineral after
this lecture, but the possibilities will be greatly
narrowed to a few likely suspects.
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John Betts
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John
Betts was born in Illinois in 1956 in a family full
of artists and attended the University of Illinois receiving
a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Industrial Design in 1978.
Mr. Betts started collecting minerals in 1969 while
living in
California. His interest in minerals was heightened
during summer vacation in Maine where he heard the famous
mineral dealer/collector Stan Perham lecture about the
huge beryl crystals discovered at the Bumpus Quarry
in Maine. John has collected Maine minerals along with
other New England states ever since.
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His
skills as a prolific field collector led to modest
mineral sales at local
mineral shows in the New York City area. By 1990 he
was selling at 12
mineral shows per year. In 1996 Mr. Betts started
an internet web site selling minerals johnbetts-fineminerals.com
which rapidly expanded to the point that it was a
second full time job.
In
2001, after 23 years of working as a product designer,
Mr. Betts left design work to devote his full
energy to selling minerals. To date he has sold over
75,000 mineral specimens.
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Smoky Quartz (with unusual inclusions in the termination)
North Moat Mountain, New Hampshire
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CMS
Online - New Membership and Fieldtrip Signup Page
https://fieldtrips.coloradomineralsociety.org
For
those people who are not current active members, you can go
this link
and create your account.
Click
here for the user guide. ~ * ~
Click here for the Introduction to the new site.
CMS
has moved the Membership Renewals and Field Trip Sign-ups
to a new custom web-based system.
The
goal of this system is to:
- Give members access to their information to make updates
less cumbersome.
- Give members the ability to renew memberships, or
prospective members the ability to join, using a credit
or debit card.
- Make signing up for field trips more adaptable to
schedules. Instead of signing up several weeks in advance
or hesitating to sign up, members can make a decision
closer to the actual date.
- Make it easier for field trip coordinators / class
instructors to have current lists of participants and
those on waitlists.
- members who renewed before April 15, 2020 will receive
a link to create a password for their account.
- members who did not renew before April 15, 2020 should
go to the new site to Register a new account and join/renew
using the Become A Member feature.
https://fieldtrips.coloradomineralsociety.org/
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