May General Meeting:

 

Ted Johnson will tell us about “New Englands First Rockhounds.”

 

Ted started collecting minerals in 1960 at Paterson, New Jersey at the age of 11 yrs. He has a keen interest in all nature as well as minerals and geology.  Ted is an avid traveler which led him to visit areas in Sweden and Poland (father and mother’s family history) to learn about their geology, minerals, natural history and culture. In addition, he has collected minerals in many of the U.S. states and traveled to countries, such as England, Greece, Russia, Mexico, Australia, Canada, Greenland, Italy and others.  He specializes in New England minerals and pegmatite minerals of worldwide localities. Ted started Yankee Mineral and Gem Co. in 1984 to support these obsessions. 2024 is the company’s 40th Anniversary! 

 

 

 

 

 

Pebble Pups:

 

For the May Pebble Pups meeting I will be talking about "Eurypterids". These were the giant sea scorpions of the Paleozoic. They first found their home in the sea, but later moved into the brackish swamps and fresh water lakes by the end of the era. Although the best fossils have been found right here in the US, they were worldwide predators. They did not have stingers like modern land scorpions, nor are they related, as they went extinct like most everything else at the end of the Permian. Collecting them in New York state is a challenge in the Bertie Waterlime. It is about the hardest rock to separate, being a silicified-dolomite. But in a Cedarville Quarry in eastern New York, a well known collector found a claw over fifteen feet long. So these critters were something to reckon with. See you there.

   Tom Rich