Colorado Mineral Society Patch


Member
American Federation of
Mineralogical Societies



www.amfed.org

Member
Rocky Mountain Federation of Mineralogical Societies




www.rmfms.org

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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Upcoming Events

2020 Field Trip Photos


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.

 

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 Jacobson’s 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.


John Betts
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.

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.



Smoky Quartz (with unusual inclusions in the termination)
North Moat Mountain, New Hampshire

 

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/


A Visitor’s Guide to
Colorado Gemstones
Article

On International Gem Society's
Website mentions the
Colorado Mineral Society


Click here to read

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