New Forum Member
30 messages in this thread
Hello all,
I'm a Compuserve/online newbie, so just getting a feel for things. I'm a
geologist in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, and my principal interests are
paleontology (especially invertebrate) and sedimentary geology. I've already
browsed some interesting items in this forum–looks good so far! Also joined
the dinosaur forum, so you might find me lurking there as well.
Happy new year, thanks for the welcome.
Howard
Welcome to the Geology section of the Science Forum! A number of
paleontologists, amateur and pro, have re-deposited themselves here, but I
don't think we've had anyone from Canada here yet. You're certainly in a nice
spot for collecting, from what I've heard!
John:
Thanks for the welcome. I'm surprised to hear I'm the only Canuck in this
forum, since there are hundreds (maybe thousands?) of geologists in Canada,
especially in Alberta & Calgary. Yes, you've heard right–this can be a very
good area for collecting. Almost all periods, from Precambrian to Recent are
represented by sedimentary rocks in Alberta, except for Silurian (also,
Ordovician rocks are pretty scarce here, and outcrop only in national parks, so
no collecting allowed). Of course the Cretaceous dinosaur fossils are the best
known. Not much in the way of hard-rock stuff here, however (ie metallic ores,
crystals, etc.). Have to go to British Columbia or Central Canada for that type
of stuff.
I thought Alberta had draconian fossil collecting laws. Have they changed? Or
are they merely not being enforced?
Don,
Alberta DOES have draconian fossil collecting laws. But as with most laws,
there is a letter of the law and a spirit of the law, and in this case, as long
as the spirit is followed, the letter is rarely enforced.
This is basically how it works at present:
LETTER OF THE LAW
1) No collecting in areas where specifically prohibited (provincial & national
parks, etc.)
2) Loose specimens can be collected where not specifically prohibited.
3) No fossils (vert. or invert.) can be excavated from in-situ rocks (without
academic permit).
4) No fossils collected in Alberta may be sold commercially (except certain
types on a control list, which require government permit–ammonites, dinosaur
bone, petrified wood, a few others).
5) No fossils collected in Alberta may be removed from the province (exceptions
as above).
6) The government retains ownership of all fossils found in Alberta after 1978
(exceptions as above).
SPIRIT OF THE LAW
1) Don't collect in the parks.
2) Go ahead and collect loose stuff, but get permission on private land. If you
find something really wild, please notify a museum or university. It might be
important.
3) If you find a T. rex skull, don't be an idiot and try to excavate it
yourself. Also, don't go renting a back-hoe and start digging up fossils by the
ton.
4) Don't set up a booth at the flea-market and start selling the fossils you
excavated with your back-hoe.
5) If you come across some rare or otherwise valuable specimens, don't spirit
them away to some rich collector in Outer Slobbovia.
6) Yes, the government OWNS your fossil collection, but private collectors are
allowed to maintain guardianship. As long as you don't try to sell it or ship
it out of the country, the government couldn't care less–no fossil cops are
going to lob tear gas through your window at 3am and make you hand over your
trilobites.
In general, any collector who uses common sense and courtesy, and doesn't try
to get greedy, has nothing to worry about from the government, and can go ahead
and collect with a clear conscience.
Although the laws in Alberta do seem pretty nasty, I and a lot of other local
collectors can sympathize with the reasons behind them. As you know, parts of
Alberta are very rich in dinosaur bones. In the early years of this century,
literally hundreds of skeletons were shipped out of the province to stock
museums in New York, Washington, Toronto, Ottawa, London and Paris. Believe it
or not, until the Tyrrell Museum was built in the late 1970s, the only complete
dinosaur skeleton on display in the entire province was on loan from the
national museum in Ottawa! Obviously this situation tends to rub locals the
wrong way. I'm sure you're well aware of all the hysteria that's been going on
lately with Jurassic Park and whatnot driving up the prices of fossils all over
the world. Scientists in the US and Canada have had to post armed guards at
excavation sites to prevent looters from taking over. If not for the existing
laws, it's doubtful if there would be a scrap of bone left anywhere in the
province.
Hi, Howard–
Welcome to the forum!
A few other Canadians have shown up here, from time to time. You are just the
only one active on the board at the moment. I remember only one who is a pro
geologist (a geomorphologist as best I recall).
–Doug
Doug–
Thanks for the welcome…pretty friendly bunch online! Will be out in the bush
for the next month or so: if my messages go unanswered for a while, it's not
because I'm ignoring anyone. Will try (good luck!) to log on via cellular phone
once in a while.
Howard
Hi, Howard, if you are still there–
If you are going to try anything as expensive as cellular access, there is a
lot to be $aid for really efficient visits. Fully-automatic access programs
("navigators") like OzCIS, TAPCIS, and so on would help a lot. If you are
using CIM, practice using "Mark" to mark all/many topics and then using
"Retrieve" to fetch them all in one gulp, followed by a quick disconnect and
later reading. One should be able to download the entire section in a minute
or two of connect time that way.
–Doug
Doug:
>>Fully-automatic access programs ("navigators") like OzCIS, TAPCIS, and so on
would help a lot.<<
Thanks for your concern: I am presently using Navigator (Mac), which I bought a
couple of weeks ago…so far it is an EXCELLENT program, which I highly
recommend to others. (This message was sent via cellular…a pretty crummy
signal–2400 BPS max–but it works!)
H.
Hi Howard,
You're not the only Canuck geologist around. I've been lurking rather
infrequently lately. I am based in Montreal, but have been working in Guyana
for the past eight months. Regards,
Bruce
Hi Bruce!
Good to hear from you, eh? 😉
Any good fossils in Guyana, or are you a hard-rock guy?
Howard
Hi Howard,
I'm a hard-rock guy, but that doesn't mean I ignore the soft stuff :> I am
working on two gold exploration projects in Central Guyana. The rocks are
PreCambrian, of course, but there are lots of sub-horizontal sandstones on the
properties. I haven't seen any fossils as of yet. Then again, maybe the
weathering has something to do with it. Despite the lack of fossils, there is
still a hell of a lot of biology to see. The bugs are pretty evolved down
there. I have found a lot of placer diamonds in the alluvials derived from the
sandstones. Obviously, there is a paleo-placer somewhere. I'll take diamonds
before fossils any day ;-/
Bruce
Hi, Bruce–
Welcome back!
Forget the gold, find more diamonds. I want the DeBeers cartel broken so I can
better afford to buy fluorescent diamond specimens (but I am not holding my
breath). I tried to break DeBeers single-handed in a visit to Crater of
Diamonds state park in AR, but it was I who came out broke; it seems I need
some help.
If the diamonds are eroding out of the sandstone, where might the the sandstone
have eroded from? Drat, pre-Cambrian you said, so the kimberlite pipe must
have preceded the trilobites into oblivion…
–Doug
Welcome Howard!
While we have already met, sorta, over in the Dinosaur Forum, I want to extend
a personal welcome here as well. I am very happy whenever the ranks of
paleontologists swell here.
I spent a week in Kananaskis in 1989 at a Sulfur Seminar. Drove up and down
the valley looking at the amazing geology. found a clam in a small stream near
the Kananaskis Lodge, but that was it. Two years later, our family spent two
weeks traveling Alberta and Montana, with the obligatory stops at the Tyrell
and Dinosaur Provincial park, and a lot of hunting here and there. I would
love to spend more time looking.
I'm down in NW Washington, near Vancouver, B.C. If you ever come down this
way, we could get together.
Hi Michael,
Thanks for the welcome and the invite. If I ever get a break from work, I'd
like to head west and do some scrounging around on Vancouver Island, etc. I've
heard Washington State has some interesting Cretaceous or Tertiary crab
fossils…?
Your find of a "clam in a small stream" piqued my interest–do you mean a
fossil clam? or a recent freshwater clam? Most of the rocks around the
Kananaskis Lodge are Devonian and Mississippian, and clams are relatively rare.
(I'm give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you didn't mean a brachiopod
<G>.) There are some fossiliferous Jurassic outcrops at the base of Mount Allan
(the ski hill NW of the lodge), so marine clams are possible from there. Did
you try taking the hike along the Mt. Allan ridge? If you ever visit there
again, and are interested in geology, that is a great (though strenuous) hike.
You can climb right to the summit of Mount Allan. The east ridge of the
mountain has vertically thrusted beds of Lower Cretaceous conglomerate, which
form a row of really weird monoliths up to about 30 or 40 feet tall. Great
stuff!
Howard- The shoreline along the Strait of Juan de Fuca from Port Townsend to
Cape Flattery is all Eocene to Recent, with several areas of Miocene/Oligocene
marine sediments containing fossil crustaceans. All are found in concretions,
and generally very hard to prepared. I have over 20 hours into a small 4cm
specimen.
Michael:
>>several areas of Miocene/Oligocene marine sediments containing fossil
crustaceans…All are found in concretions, and generally very hard to
prepare<<
I think those same formations (or equivalents) extend north into Canada. I've
heard rumours about Tertiary, crab-bearing concretions in the Oyster Bay area,
near Comox on Vancouver Island.
I've had pretty good luck using a Dremel electric engraver (the vibrating type,
with replaceable bits–tungsten carbide or diamond (expensive!)) on small
mollusc shells in Cretaceous ironstone concretions. I prefer to do the work
under a low-power stereo microscope. Admittedly, this takes a long time, but is
quite precise, and a lot quicker than dental tools. These concretions are
"harder than the hubs of hell" (one of my Dad's old sayings <G>), so may be
comparable to your concretions.
Where did you get your microscope, and would you get the same kind again?
John:
I bought my microscope over 12 years ago, at a geological supply company, here
in Calgary, Canada. At the time, they were offering cheap rates on used
microscopes for geology students. I paid about $250. (At that time it probably
retailed new for about $800-1000). The scope is a Tasco K1030, which is a
"two-speed" (x10 and x30). I it find adequate for 99% of my needs. The optics
are not too bad: I've used it nearly every day of my wellsite geology career,
and many hours at home, and I don't need glasses…yet 8-). I would certainly
recommend the same model to any hobbyist. Since I am a professional geologist,
if I was going to get another scope I'd probably consult a tax accountant to
see if I could write off the price of a Wild Leitz scope from Germany, which I
have used briefly in the past, and has optics to die for…and a price tag to
match!
Howard
I've been collecting advice and literature about stereo 'scopes, in
anticipation of a purchase of both a stereo scope and a light microscope for
biological tinkering. Now I have plenty of information, but none of the
certainty and reassurance gained by a test drive. 🙁 It's hard to gamble
hundreds of dollars without that test drive. I have literature on some very
inexpensive Chinese 'scopes, some of those >$1000 Leitz you mention, and
several in-between. I ran a classified ad in the local university paper, and
even had someone with a Bausch & Laumb (sp?) for $75, but I suspect it was hot,
because she backed out of the sale. Other students were trying to unload
theirs for $750+.
John:
Another possible source of scopes, though probably inconvenient unless you live
or have friends in Houston or Denver is oil company liquidation auctions. Every
time the oil industry hits the skids and a new round of "downsizing and
rationalization" occurs, some interesting items hit the "used office supplies"
auctions. A friend of mine here in Calgary (action central in the Canadian oil
biz) managed to get two scopes over the years from such auctions, as well as
other neat stuff like map drawers and oil company library (ie geology) books.
Having tried numerous scopes over the years, I've found that the weakest point
in all of them is the rack-and-pinion focussing gears, which tend to get chewed
up by boneheads trying to crank the knobs beyond their limits. Make sure the
focussing action is smooth, from top to bottom! Also check alignment of the
prisms & objective lenses at each power. If one or more of the combinations is
painful to look through, it might have been dropped and knocked out of
alignment.
In my experience, the actual optics of the <$1000 scopes, though seldom
breathtaking, is quite adequate, as long as the elements aren't cracked and are
made by a well-known manufacturer (Baush & Lomb, American Optical, Tasco,
Kyowa, Nikon, etc.). Often, an hour with a screwdriver, lens tissue and a
careful hand can make an amazing difference to an old, dusty scope.
Thanks for the pointers. Not much oil exploration going on here in Wisconsin,
though – more likely a failed biotech or ag-related firm. I do watch the
surplus sales at the local University, but conversations with the managers
there say the 'scopes never make it as far as the surplus sales, that they tend
to "fall off trucks" or otherwise disappear before that. My tax dollars at
work, I guess.
John,
David Shannon's recent mineral list has a Nikon 12-60x zoom, with light
supply, for about $700. The scope is in as new condition. That's about a good
deal as I have seen.
I have a B & L zoom stereo with light source that I paid $600 for, three
years ago. I am very happy with it. (I gave my old AO 15x, 30x to my boys.)
These things are expensive, but you get what you pay for in quality of
optics: color accuracy is especially important at higher magnifications for
micromineral work.
Nathan
Yes, that $700 scope sounds nice. What is "Shannon's List"? I have yet to get
excited about mineralogy; I'd use this for fossil explorations.
John,
David Shannon is the proprietor of David Shannon Minerals, 6649 E. Rustic
Drive, Mesa, Arizone 85215. Telephone No. 602-985-0557.
Shannon may sell some fossils, but he's mainly known for minerals. He also
is my principal source for micromount and thumbnail cases, "mintack," white
paper fold up boxes, etc., which are the nuts and bolts of mineral collecting.
His most recent list has the Nikon on it for sale. He often has other scopes
for sale as well.
Nathan
Hi Howard,
Just a little more on stereo scopes. I am leaving tomorrow morning to
pick up a new micromount member & head from LA out to Redlands, CA to attend
our annual Southern CA. Micromounters Conference. There will be at least 70
stereo scopes set up for a week-end conference. People come from all over the
U.S. A large, long 30 foot table will contain the "give-away" minerals brought
by collecting members. There will be 2 speakers on Sat. & 1 on Sun.
Interspersed will be slides shown by members & an auction of micromounts. Plus
a catered dinner Sat. nite. I bought my used AO stereo scope from a member
there plus a lamp for $550. 7-30 power zoom. To those of you who are
concerned of purchasing a used scope, remember this – it does't hurt a scope to
"look" through it. You can look through a scope 1,000,000 times & it is just
as good as new! 😉
Rod
Your father spoke with understatement
I envy your stereo-scope.
M
Hi Howard Allen — and other forum members.
I'm also a new member — a retired meteorologist in Hilton Head, SC. I'm
currently interested in Ice Ages — the history, causes and all which seem to
involve oceanography, geology, biology and chemistry as well as meteorology.
Hi, James–
Welcome to the forum/section!
Do not forget astronomy; while I am a bit out of touch with such things, the
last I heard Milankovich cycles were still a significant player in ice age
theories.
–Doug
James:
Welcome to the club! Did you catch our (brief) discussion of glacial land forms
in "Airliner Geology"? Might still be on the forum.