Panorama Gem
Rock Hounding in Northeast Washington
Category Archives: helpful hints
Petrified Wood May 2nd
Date Change on Stonerose
Due to scheduling conflicts, the club trip to the Stonerose Fossil site has been moved from Saturday April 10th to Sunday April 11th. We still meet at Harvest Foods in Kettle Falls, 8:30 in the morning. Bring hard rock tools, we will need to fracture layers of rock and separate them with chisels in order to find fossils. There is a limit of 3 good fossil specimens per person and the club will collect enough money to cover the $30 group cost. We should be at Stonerose about 9:30 and expect to leave about 2 PM. So bring water and a lunch. Be prepared for highly variable weather.
Permits
Field Trips Set
The Rock Show was by all accounts a big success. We are moving on to a busy field trip schedule. Rex Barrans has finalized the dates and destinations. Check the events tab for dates. For just field trips, go to the field trip page.
Field Trip Issues
Quartzsite Pictures
Club Member Bev Bockman has returned from a trip to Arizona to see family and visit the rock shows. There will be an article about it in the next Panorama Prospector Newsletter. In the meantime, you can see pages of pictures from the show on this website. Just follow this link to Bev’s Quartzite Pictures
Prospective Field Trips
The field trip committee, Rex Barrans, Scott Jackson and Brian Martell have a prospective list of field trips ready:
Gold Panning Rules
The 2010 version of the Department of Natural Resources rules for Gold Panning has not been posted yet on their website, but now you can download the 2009 rules from our website: http://panoramagem.com/download/goldfish2009.pdf.
Scouting Field Trips
Here is a list of places that might be worth investigating. Some would not make good club trips because of difficult access, but others might turn into regular spots:
- The Talisman mine above Laurier – 4×4 road but said to have interesting stuff and an incredible view.
- The volcanic pinnacles near Springdale – a geologic anomaly, also fossils near the limestone kilns in Springdale
- Beryl Crystals – I don’t know of a place where the club has gone for these that is still open but would like to find one
- Pegmatite Gems – there is a lot of slow-cooled granite up Ruby Creek and Winchester Creek – hike in exploration
- The First Thought mine area is huge, should be something worth seeing there
- The Napoleon Mine – I met a guy who knows it well. Produced iron, may have nice pyrites
- Garnets – Steve Fox is looking for a site and I have heard of others.
- The Big Iron Mine – reportedly interesting magnetite and other stuff
- The Melrose Mine north of Northport – reportedly huge opening, lead, pyrite, zinc