General Meeting – Thursday, March 9th (Click Here For More Info)

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General Meeting – Thursday, March 9th

Topic: Rock & Mineral Identification with Roger Danneman, our club Field Trip Guide 

Identifying rocks and minerals found in Washington. This will also be a good opportunity to get your questions answered on identifying rocks and minerals in general.

Mineral identification is the first step in understanding the formation of a rock and its history. You learn to “read the rock” to understand Earth’s history at any given location where the rock is found in an outcrop. This allows geologists and us to understand what the environment was like at the moment the rock formed. Was there a volcano erupting or does the rock tell us that it formed deep inside a magma chamber? Was the rock formed by the burial of an ancient beach? Was the rock formed by compressive forces deep within the crust as continents collided and new mountains were forming? The clues to these widely different environments of formation are “written in the rock.” The first step in understanding the rock’s history is being able to identify, characterize and quantify the minerals that compose the rock. Rocks are fascinating to a geologist because every rock has a story to tell. As we read the rock from one location to the next, it helps us piece together the fascinating story of the Earth. 

Show ‘n Tell: Bring something you want to be identified. 

Updated: March 20, 2023 — 5:43 am

Presidents Message

  • Digging It!  Thanks to everyone who came out for our February club meeting – it was a fun one, with our own Roger Danneman presenting the highlights of our field trips to come for 2026. Several club members brought their impressive best finds from 2025 for show and tell. Speaking of field trips – our first field trip of the year is in the books, with a mildly snowy day at the Middle Fork of the Nooksack River up by Ol’ One Lane Bridge outside of Acme, Washington. The variety of rocks this year was excellent, thanks in part to …

Meeting Announcements

  • Maureen Carlisle, Former Docent at the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, will take us through A Day on a Dig: “Over the years I’ve been asked about what it is like to be on a dino dig, so I’d like to answer some of these questions. I’ll cover some of the practical aspects of both archaeology and paleontology, as I have had the pleasure of being involved in both.” Show and Tell: bring a fossil or artifact that you’ve found or collected.

  • Come one, come all and play ROCK BINGO! With schools out for many local school districts, we invite members, guests, and especially families and kids to come and enjoy one of our most fun nights of the year. Everyone is guaranteed to win at this FREE event! All you have to do is bring three wrapped presents – presents can be rocks, gems, minerals, crystals, fossils, cabochons, slabs, jewelry, tumbled stones – anything you think might be a nice gift for a rock enthusiast. 

  • Our own Mike Blanton will bring his expertise to this club meeting program – he will share the tools, tips and tricks he has developed to drill holes in stones and minerals so you can do more with the rocks you find. Show and Tell: bring a rock you’d like to make into something else.

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