If you are going to visit a quarry to collect fossils or minerals, it helps to have a checklist of what to bring. Quarry access is considerably more restrictive today than it was 30 or 40 years ago, but it is ultimately up to the quarry owner. Collecting is not dangerous when you follow safety guidelines and use the correct tools for the right rock.
Before we begin – The quickest way for a person or club to be banned from a quarry is to leave tools behind. They can damage rock-crushing equipment, causing thousands of dollars in damage. Make your tools easy to spot from a distance!
There is an art to successfully removing minerals and fossils from a large rock. Patience is the most important part. Learn from experienced collectors. Expect the rock to break wrong most of the time.
This is not an end-all of collecting tools, but these are the essentials when in a quarry. Let’s review what you need to bring:
Permission – mandatory. Don’t go into a quarry without permission. Even inactive and closed quarries have an owner. Trespassing reduces the opportunity that permission might be granted to an insured organization. Sign visitor log-in books as required.
Hard hat – mandatory in active quarries. Get an adjustable helmet to fit snugly. You don’t want it to slide over your face when you look down or fall to the ground when you look up! A chinstrap is often helpful, but not essential. Hard hats are designed to absorb the impact if a small rock falls from a height and lands on your head. Not a boulder, mind you, just a small rock. You shouldn’t be collecting immediately below a highwall (cliff face), anyway.
Heavy boots – steel-toed boots are best to protect your feet from being crushed by a shifting rock, a dropped chisel, etc. You want a good tread for traction in mud, dust, or smooth rock surfaces. Avoid shoes with exposed toes, sides, or heels at all costs!
Gloves – heavy-duty gloves work well when you are turning over or scrambling on rocks. They can shift, pinching or crushing your fingers. The main purpose is to reduce the risk of cutting your hand on edges of rocks or when using a hammer and chisel. It also reduces blistering if you swing a hammer a lot.
Sturdy clothes – Jeans or other heavy-duty clothes are recommended. Avoid wearing loose-fitting clothes or clothes that can be snagged. Never go into a quarry with short pants – even in the summer. Long-sleeve shirts are a good idea as well. The less skin exposed, the better.
Fluorescent vests/shirts – required in active quarries. They provide visibility. You need to be seen. Those with pockets are handy. Yellow and orange are the most common fluorescent colors, but pink and light green may be used.
Eye/ear protection – if you are going to be breaking rock, these are mandatory. No specimen is worth losing your eyesight over! Full coverage is best, but when you sweat, your eyes will sting! Another option is a screen facial cover, as you see for chainsaw users. Rocks can fly in odd directions, and ricocheting is to be expected. Ear plugs are a good idea if you will be hammering or around others, or around noisy equipment, such as rock-crushing plants. Some quarries have banned the use of hammers, which makes collecting more difficult. Find out before you go.
Hammer – rock or masonry hammers are good for light trimming. Sledgehammers are essential for reducing larger rocks. They come in all sizes and weights. Heft it and take some practice swings before you buy one. Get a hammer that you can use comfortably. Solid metal casts with the handle and hammer are the safest. Claw and ballpeen hammers are not designed to hit rock. Metal can flake off and cause serious injuries. Only use hammers designed for rock.
Chisels – the newer chisels with hand guards are ideal. If you don’t have a hand guard, buy the thickest gloves you can get. Different chisels have different uses, so talk to experienced collectors to find out which chisels best serve a particular rock you will be working with. Spray-paint your chisels and other metal tools using fluorescent colors.
Tool belt – handy for carrying a small hammer, chisels, and wrapping material. For larger tools, milk crates, five-gallon plastic buckets, and small backpacks or gym bags can be used. Long tools have to be carried by hand or, if possible, left in your vehicle until needed.
Specimen care – Bring adequate wrapping material and storage boxes/containers. Better to have too much than not enough! Newspaper, paper towels, toilet paper, and rags can be used depending on the size and condition of the fossil or minerals you collect. I often stuff a rag into a crystal pocket before trying to remove it to keep crystals from flying off or rock flakes and dust from damaging them. Egg cartons, cardboard flats, small plastic storage bins, milk crates, and buckets can be used to hold specimens. Don’t overload them. Park as close to your collecting spot as is safely possible. Secure everything in your vehicle so you won’t have an “in-car avalanche” if you slam the brakes on the way home.
Food & Water – it is always a good idea to carry adequate food and water for the duration of your visit. In warm weather, quarries can be extremely hot, whether you are in the pit or walking the subsoil surface on the surrounding property. Heat exhaustion can be a real threat. One should drink at least a quart of water per hour of the visit. I emptied a half-gallon jug of water in two hours when it was 85 – 90 degrees. Quarries tend to reflect light and can be 10 – 25 degrees warmer than the air temperature outside the pit.
Health Concernsand First Aid – Make sure others are aware of potential health problems that can be elevated by physical activity in warm weather. Be aware of problems induced by medications (i.e., increased sun sensitivity). An easily accessible, portable first aid kit should be carried in every vehicle. Remember, injuries in a quarry may not be treatable by a typical first aid kit. Have gauze, splints, and eye wash in your supplies. Make sure any medicines are not expired after being left in the car for several years.
Trash – Haul it out with you. Don’t leave food wrappers, drink cans/bottles, wrapping material for rocks, cardboard flats, etc. lying around the quarry. The quarry workers might be slobs, but as guests we can’t be.
Responsibility for yourself and your family – Remember, when a quarry owner or manager lets an individual or club into a site, they are personally responsible for you whether or not they are present. Think before you act. Do not get into a situation that might lead to legal action down the road. Even if you sprain your ankle or hurt your back, leave the quarry out of it. If an ambulance run is made to pick up an injured rock hound, the quarry will face fines of thousands of dollars or more from MSHA, the federal mine safety agency. That will ensure that no one ever gets in again.
Thank your host – Quarry personnel take on the responsibility for your safety when visiting an active operation. Sometimes they come in on their day off. Employees may accept a gratuity, like a gift card; others may not. I’ve given garden plants to the owners. Others might bring a specimen from elsewhere, such as a Brazilian agate, an Ordovician Moroccan trilobite, or a polished cephalopod.
Front-end loader with people for scale. This equipment can easily kill collectors in active quarries; that’s why safety rules must be followed to the letter.
The bibliography lists over 180 articles and books published since 1980. Theme-based, it had a linear format, which meant a lot of scrolling! Now, the articles are compiled under the same four topics: Astronomy, Education & Nature, Gardening, and Geology.
In addition, I’ve embedded links to articles on fossils, minerals, and education scattered across my website. I will scan more articles and post them, especially those on Mineral News and the MAPS Digest (fossils). I intend to scan my older Astronomy magazine articles that are out of print, as well. With so many, it will take a while.
If you see an article in the bibliography you would like me to scan and post, drop an email to alangoldsteinwriter1@gmail.com. I will try to oblige.
Writer’s conferences and workshops are widespread around the U.S. because there are a plethora of authors. According to Kate Snyder, owner of The Plaid Elephant, a children-focused bookstore in Danville, Kentucky, four million books were published last year. Of those, only a half million were through publishing companies. The rest were self-published. I wonder how many self-published books were by people who know about editing, cover design, and other aspects that make a book a good read.
This was the fifth conference organized by the Bluegrass Writers Coalition. (I joined last summer; membership is free). The format was a keynote speaker, one morning concurrent session (I went to a panel on “Research, The Foundation of Your Non-fiction Masterpiece.) It was followed by a fantastic lunch and two concurrent sessions in the afternoon. (I went to “Mastering Online Marketing” with Matt Jones and Shelf Appeal: How to Catch a Bookseller’s Eye” with Kate Snyder.) It wrapped up with an hour-long Q&A with all the panelists and speakers.
Matt Jones of Tulsa, Oklahoma, led a session on online marketing.
The presenters at the Q & A session held the last hour of the conference.
Throughout my career in museums and parks, professional development has been critical. Getting a degree is NOT the end of education; it’s a time to transition to non-formal learning. It behooves (I love that word!) anyone who wants to live a full life to keep their gray matter active. Stop learning, and the slow decline of life is sure to begin.
Today, I stand atop Jeptha Knob. My name is Jim Gilford, and I’m here to solve an act of violence. Mano a mano? No. Naturaleza a naturaleza, nature versus nature. Shelby County was brutalized before the first human set a foot on the land, and I’m here to solve the long-buried mystery.
I’m not your typical detective. I am a rockhound because I love to sniff out crimes against the Earth. My friends call me a geological gumshoe in hiking boots.
Mantled in farms and forests, Jeptha Knob is Shelby County’s highest point. Why is it here? Lord knows I’ve passed the knob on Interstate-64 countless times traveling between Louisville and Frankfort. My high-mileage Ford pickup truck is one of thousands that traverse the edge of the hill, going to and fro every day. Four wheels humming the song where rubber meets the road.
Drivers must think about everything in the world but ancient Kentucky. I’d bet my favorite trilobite that most focus on the future: where they are going, or what they will do upon reaching their destination. A few might be ruminating about where they have been, or problems they left behind. My thoughts are deeper. Millions of years deeper.
The Commonwealth has many geological secrets, questions that I have longed to answer. I’ve always suspected that Jeptha Knob, a “hairy” hill decorated with cell towers, must have an interesting history.
My investigation begins with a dig that needs no shovel. I mine university libraries and the internet for articles and maps written by long-past geologists. By learning what they knew, I can draw my own conclusions.
What I unearth is two competing interpretations. If only I were a fly on the wall listening to a decades-old conversation when it happened. True, I’d be a long-dead fly by now. I can easily envision two scientists espousing their hypotheses, back and forth, in a scholarly version of Wimbledon, and imagine it went something like this:
“It’s volcanic,” the professor states with confidence. He wears a stiff black jacket with a red bow tie and stands behind a polished walnut desk decorated with carefully scattered maps. His thick fingers drum the surface in a tattoo of impatience. An ample belly mimics his theory, threatening to emerge from his jacket like a magma chamber rising to Earth’s surface, shirt buttons potential volcanic bombs.
“But there’s no igneous rock there,” counters the geologist from the front of the desk. Dressed in dusty blue coveralls with a rock hammer hanging from his belt, the man is tall and wiry, with skin as rough as Kentucky’s landscape. His shoes look as worn as an old barn.
“True. But maybe it’s buried deep beneath the roots of the Knob.”
“No. Drilling has revealed nothing. I believe it fell from the heavens as a giant meteorite, like the crater in Arizona,” replies the geologist, looking at an electric globe lamp hanging from the ceiling as if it is going to drop on his head.
The professor cups his clean hands. “There’s no crater.”
The field scientist mirrors the professor cupping his hands with dirt-filled fingernails. “It’s ancient. The crater has eroded over the eons.” He wriggles the shape away.
I realize their theories can be investigated because they left written documentation. I don’t have to believe one over the other. My task is to sniff out clues. There’s only so much one can get by reading and poring over maps. Direct evidence may allow me to learn the answer. I love a good challenge.
On this October day, I make time to flex my skills as an amateur field geologist. The reason for all those cell towers is simple: signals can be broadcast far and wide. The view from the top of the knob is incredible, even if trees and buildings interrupt the panorama. The air is redolent with the aroma of falling leaves and freshly mowed hay. I can taste autumn.
With its fields and woods, houses, barns, and roads, Jeptha Knob’s landscape is no different than most of rural Kentucky. My goal is to tease out the secret, one hidden beneath a tableau of gold, scarlet, and burgundy hues. I must hunt for bare spots in the heavy vegetation to find… rocks. They will provide the clues.
Ambling down the hill, traversing one of the dry rivulets, I kneel and pick up a chunk of tawny chert. The sharp-edged rock is decorated with tiny shells called brachiopods, our State Fossil. The mysteries of paleontology began in Europe, hundreds of years ago, when people climbed the Alps and found fossils on their peaks. Although these early mountaineers knew nothing about geology, their presence fit nicely with Noah’s flood.
Jeptha Knob is a blip on the Earth compared to the Alps, but the wonder of finding fossil sea creatures up here, a thousand miles from the ocean, remains unspoiled by knowledge of how marine mud ended up here. As a rockhound, I am aware of the technology that paleontologists use to date rocks and the fossils within.
My eyesight, failing as I age, makes it necessary to memorize the three-point font geological time chart in my wallet. What I do recall is that the fossils I’ve collected are about 443 million years old. That is ancient beyond measure, but not the oldest fossils in the Commonwealth. The weight of history in my hand is greater than one pound. This wonder only increases my appetite to know more. It is but one piece of my geological jigsaw puzzle.
I must reconnoiter further to seek clues. Farther down the hill, I find horizontal shale layers upended. A force of nature from above or below levered the strata. Somewhere close is a fault line, a fracture in the bedrock. Kentucky is a state with many faults. This isn’t a trite political statement, but a geological observation. While most are normal faults, those within Jeptha Knob are anything but.
Exploration shows different-looking rocks mere footsteps apart, suggesting that an obscured fault line must be here. I wish I could see the hill in its entirety, as bald as my grandfather’s head, unsullied by groundcover. In my mind’s eye, a naked knob appears, with shale and limestone splintered by radiating and curved faults. It’s as if Mother Nature hurled a mountain-sized rock at Shelby County, shattering the land into a hundred pieces. Or did it give a punch from below? That’s the debate, why I’m here today.
Evidence of a cataclysm is scant. It takes a trained eye to eke out details. I hope my eyes and my brain are sharp enough. With a fossil here, a smidgeon of bedrock there, the knob would be more obvious if it were unrooted and moved to Utah or New Mexico, where bare hills abound. But it’s my secret to reveal.
Following a meandering deer trail, I think back to a time when this hill was covered by virgin chestnut, maple, oak, and hickory. They bore girths I couldn’t begin to encircle, even with a rock hammer in each hand.
Surely the First People would have wondered about this round hill rising from a gently undulating landscape. Did they cross it, or find it easier to walk around? Perhaps they climbed the knoll to seek chert to knap into tools? Did they give it a name?
Questions I can’t answer continue to fill my head. Did elephantine mammoths and mastodons pass here tens of thousands of years ago? How much rock was eroded and carried away over the eons? Did this hill exist during the Age of Dinosaurs? Or is it recent? I have too many questions.
I clear my head, catch my breath, and sip from my water bottle. There’s a convenient tree stump to sit. From my chair, I distract myself from the past and listen to catalogue the sounds carried by the autumn breeze. A “chip, chip” comes from my left, a few hundred feet away, hidden in the forest underbrush. A chipmunk announces an intruder to its companions. It might be me.
Rustling overhead comes from a grandfather red oak. I gaze at a furry gray squirrel galivanting over a gnarled branch, gathering fresh acorns for winter. The chiseling of a pileated woodpecker comes from a deadfall not a hundred feet away. I smile at the antics of this crow-sized bird of red, black, and white, thankful that I don’t have to use my rock hammer to find a meal of grubs. The growling downshift of a big rig reminds me that I’m not alone in the wildness; the interstate highway is at the bottom of the hill.
I pull out my loupe to examine a fossil that I haven’t packed away. It’s a section of disks from the stalk of an ancient sea lily – an animal related to starfish. It was anchored to the seafloor as firmly as a stalk of golden corn in the field at the bottom of the hill. Perhaps it perished when Jeptha Knob was created, as surely as a stalk of corn survives a powerful tornado.
Any fossil preserved in Kentucky’s bedrock tells a story whispered to those who are willing to listen and interpret. I hear the quiet voice that survived weathering and erosion through time immemorial. This is Kentucky before it had a name; from an age so vast, millennia become microseconds on our galaxy’s pocket watch. Millions of years have no meaning to people when a century seems like an eternity.
It requires an “inner” eye or an active imagination. What do I see?
A vibrant cerulean ocean where the only movement is the clouds scudding across a crystalline sky and waves undulating, bringing oxygen to the creatures hidden below. Plankton follows the meandering currents, living and dying, unaware that they will become the power for modern society, petroleum. They will be transformed into ubiquitous plastic, forming pernicious new “plankton” that finds its way into all living things. Life begets life, death begets death.
Plunging into saltwater, I see corals, boulders cloaked with tiny tentacles, and live sea lilies – brittle stars riding strands of beads. Squids, in long cone-shaped shells, are fingering the seafloor for tasty snails and clams. Big roly-poly-like trilobites scuttle across the bottom, scooping up morsels in gray mud. Gardens of seaweed, waving back and forth with the currents, greet me as I float by. Okay. The sea is not familiar up close. It is a place of peace with the same solace I find whether snorkeling in Laurel Lake or the Florida Keys.
What about the sky? Darkness without city lights allows me to view so many stars that I get lost in the firmament. A crescent moon hovers near the horizon, larger than any I have ever seen. A crème color dances like sprites on the waves. I sing to myself, “I see a bad moon setting.”
An unfamiliar dappled glow spans the sky: a ring. Earth has a ring? It is pitiful compared to Saturn’s, and it’s not made of sparkling ice. Perhaps an asteroid has crumbled above, forming a coarse gray necklace overhead. It lies too close to exist for long. As if to emphasize its brief life, a blazing fireball shoots across the sky in yellow and red. It fizzles out before it can plummet into the sea. Earth’s gravity will pull down the bigger rocks, and they will make a big splash… or splat.
It’s D-Day. Or should I say J-Day, the day one of two natural forces creates Jeptha Knob. Will it be a volcanic eruption? I sit and wait on a blue and white surfboard in a wetsuit. I don’t have to worry about sharks nibbling on my fingers and toes. They don’t exist yet. A sea without fish. How weird is that?
A gorgeous sunrise greets me like an old friend. The rocks of doom above fade but don’t disappear. I paddle aimlessly, looking at the horizon, flat in every direction. Haze rises off the water. It’s a saline scent not found in any body of water in the Commonwealth.
If there are any islands, they must be scattered and low. The rocks should be barren. Plants will appear on land soon, in a million years or two. Perhaps there is some moss, liverworts, or a green goo encrusting rocks that will never be preserved; another secret lost to time.
High in the western sky is a flash. The sea brightens as a new sun, a ball of fire descends like Helios on a trail of yellow, green, and blue sparks. I hold out my hand, shielding my eyes as this “sun” dives into the expansive sea. A few seconds later, there’s a deafening rumble, before the sea erupts in an explosion putting Krakatoa to shame. Streaks of white shoot high into the stratosphere, followed by a roiling mushroom cloud of steam and dust. The first shockwave pushes mist from the wave crests at hypersonic speed. I sit, unaffected.
My gut tightens into a knot. The worst is yet to come. I stand up on the surfboard, ready as the calm sea laps around me. I watch the expanding cloud and the sea at the horizon. A line of haze thickens as the roar of the asteroid impact vibrates through my bones. A wall of water, a tsunami, rises. The churning sea climbs to touch the clouds.
I bend my knees and lean forward. I lift with the water and pick up speed. Within seconds, I’m surfing across Kentucky. Hanging ten hundreds of feet above, I view the sea spread out before me, a patchwork of blues in shades of aqua and turquoise. In minutes, I pass what will be Bardstown, Elizabethtown, and Leitchfield. It doesn’t matter which direction I choose; Kentucky is completely flat and covered by saltwater. The Appalachians don’t exist.
I feel water on my face and stick out my tongue. Do I detect a little salt?
Reality returns, and Jeptha Knob is once again under my feet. An autumn rain dampens my clothes but not my spirit. It won’t spoil my day, for I have surfed across Kentucky in time and space.
There were no igneous rocks beneath Jeptha Knob that I could take for granite. Not a trace was found as I gathered limestone and shale from one side of the hill to the other. I didn’t see a volcano erupt.
This rockhound gumshoe concludes, after much research, careful field studies, and reasoning with a vivid imagination, that the geologist who hypothesized the asteroid impact was correct.
It came from space.
A rockhound must snoop on. I’m comfortable concluding that I can check off this mystery in Kentucky’s history. But rest on my laurels? Never. I hear of another geological crime scene near Fort Knox. The evidence includes oil, gas, and geodes!
Map of Jeptha Knob, Shelby Co., Kentucky. The radial and radiating dashed likes represent faults. The double solid line at the bottom is Interstate 64, the single line toward the top is Highway US 60.
I visited this museum on February 8 as one of the highlights of my week-long visit to Tucson for the various mineral and fossil shows. I facilitated the transfer of a large collection of Bisbee copper minerals from the Kentucky Science Center to the Bisbee Mining & History Museum. The KSC collection dates from the early days of Bisbee mining; the museum folks indicate most specimens are from the Holbrook Mine, with several from the Czar Mine. Here are a few photos from the visit.
Alan Goldstein, Ed Jacoby, and Dave Eicher stand at the entrance to the museum.
Annie Larkin, the museum director, poses with a few of the KSC Bisbee minerals. Most are still waiting to be cleaned.
Annie Larkin, the museum director, and I stand with the KSC minerals in the two rows between us. The other minerals are from their collections.
An azurite specimen from Bisbee, about 3″ across, for the Tucson Show display.
A hammer coated with post-mine (obviously!) native copper deposited by groundwater. Native copper is not found in the deposits at Bisbee. Other specimens include azurite on malachite, turquoise, and another late-native copper.
A color-coded map of the copper mines around Bisbee. There are about 2,000 miles of tunnels! (Most are flooded.) The colors represent different mines. The last underground mine shut down in 1975.
Exhibit to give visitors an idea of the beauty of the caves inside the mountains. Nothing like around Kentucky!
Bisbee as seen from US 80 overlook. This town was built with brick to encourage permanence of miners and families with businesses to support everyone.
My mother-in-law, Martha Meyer, passed away on December 13 at 99. She was a woman who didn’t have a mean bone in her body. She lived in her second-floor condo until last December.
Photo above: Martha Meyer demolishing Emily’s pumpkin pie about two weeks before she passed.
I met her when I started dating Debbie in 1986. After her husband, Herb, passed away, she accompanied us on quite a few vacations from coast to coast. She contributed financially, allowing us to do more than would have been possible on our family’s budget.
Debbie introduced her to the public relations person at Asbury University, a religious college in Wilmore, KY. Martha’s great uncle loaned the university money to rebuild after the 1905 fire destroyed most of the campus. He was a mason and helped with the construction of the new buildings – all of which still stand over 100 years later (photo below). The university honored her as a matriarch and treated her like a queen. She had an “aw shucks” attitude, overwhelmed by the attention.
Photo above: Martha looking at scrapbook with Debbie and Asbury folks look on.
Photo above: “Grandpa” Askin’s (Martha’s great uncle) with a masonry trowel in hand, standing before an Asbury College building he helped build in about 1913.
I retired from the Falls of the Ohio State Park on the 32nd anniversary of my being hired. (That’s Nov. 8, 1993.) Over the last 31 years, I filled a niche that included education, collections (as in specimens and artifacts, not money), developed the volunteer program, writing, special events and programs, and more.
The Falls of the Ohio is one of those unique places on our planet. It’s a one-of-a-kind location where you can walk on a Devonian sea floor (I call it dry snorkeling) when the river is low. My self-taught interest in corals enabled me to identify most of the ~150 species documented in the Devonian around the Falls. That’s the greatest in diversity, equal only to the Eifel Valley in Germany, which is the same age.
This website explores the wondrous diversity on my “Fossils” pages. Now that I’ve got more free time, I will flesh out the contact with more species photographs. I will explore fossils in blogs and articles. And yes, I will add content in astronomy, writing, family history, and more. So welcome to what I hope to be an informative collection of resources across a spectrum of interests.
I’m standing at ‘chicken rock,’ a Devonian boulder only accessible a couple of days a year at the Falls of the Ohio.
Meet the Paleontologist and Paleontology Explorer were designed to introduce visitors to a wide variety of paleontology-themed programs beginning in 2015. I hope Dale Brown continues it until my replacement is hired. After that, who knows?
What can you do with those heavy, solid geodes? How about geode bowling? This activity was invented for the Indiana State Fair and adopted for Digging the Past. Rather than knock them all down, one just has to topple one driftwood pin to get a prize.
I met all sorts of interesting people over the last 40 years (almost 8 at the museum/science center in Louisville). Certainly, one of the most colorful was ‘Bluey’, the Indianapolis Colts mascot. On Christmas Day, 1993, I gave a tour of the new Interpretive Center to Diane Sawyer and her mother. Walter Cronkite visited on my day off… oh, well.
When Ben E. Clement passed away in 1980, he left over 50,000 minerals to his family, encouraging them to create a mineral museum.
An avid field collector had a stroke in 2016. His collection, which included an estimated million specimens, filled a two-and-a-half-car garage and a pole barn. The spouse had to care for him. Dealing with the collection was a non-starter.
The daughter of two parents who collected minerals and fossils had a house full of specimens. Years after the mother passed, the elderly father had a stroke, requiring him to go into a nursing home. She needed to clean out the house to take care of her father.
A younger brother passes away unexpectedly, leaving a small collection of high-quality self-collected trilobites and prehistoric tools to his sister. She has no idea what to do with it.
These are four cases where families were left to deal with legacy collections resulting from lifelong interests in collecting by family members.
Do you have a plan for your collection?
What is a “legacy” collection?
I define it as a collection assembled throughout a collector’s life. Neither size nor quality is important. It can be field collected or purchased. It reflects the “soul” of the person or people who acquired the collection. While the collector lives, it is integrated into their life.
There are three parts in the life of a legacy collection. The first is why you collect. Second, what you do with your collection. Third, and this is the crux of this article, what can you do? What happens if you can’t disperse it?
Building your collection – Why do you collect?
Earth provides memorabilia that has a physical connection with something greater than oneself. It might be the beauty of a crystal or evidence of a curious animal or plant that lived millions of years ago. Looking for something new and interesting is one of the reasons many go collecting. Like the fishing mantra, a bad day collecting is still better than a good day at work (assuming the “bad” doesn’t refer to injury).
Rock, mineral, and fossil collecting is a fun and relaxing hobby. People with similar interests often come together through rockhound clubs. Yet, it can also be isolating: collecting may be a competition to find the best or rarest specimen. Creating lapidary art or faceting gemstones is usually done alone.
Personal collections share a trait with museums, the lack of space and the cost of having display cases, only a small fraction is often displayed. The bigger the collection, the smaller the percentage that can be displayed. The rest is stored in boxes on shelves or in drawers. Sometimes displays are rotated, bringing out specimens from time to time as others are put away. Many collectors “decorate” their yards with specimens.
Many specimens are not labeled, making their collection less valuable from both monetary and scientific perspectives. This diminishes the collector’s legacy. The more information saved, the better. For example, keeping labels with specimens! There are many itinerate localities that produce specimens over a short timeframe and then disappear forever.
Can you collect too much?
If you ask a family member, don’t be surprised if the answer is, “Yes!”
Why do we collect so much? A simple reason, “because it’s fun.” Collecting is part of human nature. Can there be a healthy balance between collecting and doing something constructive with what you collect? I’d like to think so.
Motivating factors to collect Earth’s treasures can be classified into several categories, and it’s not unusual for someone to have more than one reason. There is a difference between occupational collecting and collecting as a hobby. My focus is the latter. Reasons may include any or all of the following:
1) Lapidary activities like cutting and polishing to create something beautiful.
2) Prioritizing the displaying or competitive showing of specimens.
3) Selling fossils/minerals as an income supplement.
4) Learning/investigating things collected, such as fossils, microminerals, and fluorescents.
5) Sharing interests. Satisfaction is gained from giving away specimens to family, friends, or students.
The Fossils in My Back Yard exhibit was in the Jeffersonville Library in 2021. This is one of an ongoing series of fossil and mineral displays at two libraries.
Alan Goldstein at the Clement Museum show in Marion, Kentucky.
Are There “Good” and “Bad” Collecting Practices?
Yes, and this affects the rockhound community. ‘Bad’ collecting may cause a site to be closed or left unusable for future rockhounds. Have you heard of South Dakota’s Cycad National Monument? No? That’s because it was created and later removed from the National Park Service land inventory because all the fossil cycads had been collected, leaving nothing for visitors to see or scientists to study.
When a collector ‘vacuums’ up everything at a collecting site or a group visits a site so often that nothing interesting can be found, that’s called ‘over-collecting.’ It removes the thrill of discovery. And that nurtures children’s interest in geology. Sometimes, a collecting site is permanently ruined. Sometimes, it takes months or years of ‘rest’ for weathering and erosion to make the land worth visiting again.
Some may include packing everything away rather than showing or sharing with others as ‘bad’ collecting. A ‘geological hoarder’ is a collector who collects and then doesn’t do anything with their specimens. It’s not my place to pass judgment, but acknowledge that it is one of the personalities of avid collectors. Hidden specimens might as well still be buried in bedrock. A hoarder’s collection disappears into a personal ‘black hole.’ The collector’s death may or may not bring the trove of specimens back to be enjoyed by others. Overwhelmed family members may be unaware of a collection’s value and find it easier to haul it to a landfill, like so much junk. Who knows how many new species of fossils and rare minerals have found new homes in landfills? The number is probably a large one.
Do you have self-collected specimens where no effort has been made to document their locality or identification? It’s the locality information that is most important. Identifying a fossil is much more difficult than collecting one! Useful resources are often difficult to find, buried in old publications or fee-based websites. There are abundant fossils, like the Middle Devonian Pseudoatrypa in southern Indiana, which haven’t been named by paleontologists even after 200 years. Using obsolete names is fine because someone later might “dig up” the current name with the right publication or contact.
Truly dedicated collectors are amateur scientists, often studying what they have found to determine its identity. Amateur paleontologists are often behind the discovery of new species of fossils. Some are co-authors of scientific papers; others write articles for magazines or club newsletters. Speakers at club meetings are often from this dedicated cohort.
A garage full of rocks after 80% of the material has been removed.
I’ve got too many specimens. (Really!) What should I do?
I have a coffee mug that reads, “I have too many fossils, said no collector, ever.” Is that true? Maybe, maybe not. I’ve been collecting for over 60 years. That’s plenty of time to build a collection with thousands of fossils and minerals. (I’m closing in on 10,000 cataloged specimens.) How about you?
Options depend on the quality and quantity. If your collection is large, there are specimens you haven’t seen since you brought them home. Here are a few tips that your family might appreciate – and maybe you, too:
1) Slow down your collecting. Take hobbyists out. Yes, this is an option! During collecting trips, give specimens you find to others. I do that when I’m with budding rockhounds or visiting club members.
2) Donate your duplicates. Save a few that you like the best and rehome the rest. Over the years, I’ve done this with thousands of specimens.
3) Donate your most unusual/rare fossils or minerals. Nine new species to science were collected from a fossil crinoid site I discovered. Other species had better preservation than the type specimens. Most are in the Smithsonian and the Orton Geological Museum. I’ve also found specimens that now reside in the Indiana and Mississippi State Museums.
Donating to a museum isn’t as easy as it sounds. Museum curators and collection committees must be selective with what ends up in their permanent collections due to the long-term storage cost (Goldstein, 1989). A fossil or mineral must be unique and have good locality data. Museums rarely accept specimens with the condition, ‘it must be displayed.’ Donations to education collections are more likely to include those that can be used in programs where everything is replaceable.
4) Donating to university geoscience departments is worthwhile because students can use specimens in classes and labs to further their knowledge. I donated nearly a thousand samples from mine dumps around the country to the University of Arizona School of Mining and Mineral Resources after a request from an alumnus. Who knew? A university can become low on specimens for student studies. I didn’t need them!
5) Offering a collection to K-12 schools sounds good, but science education rarely includes in-depth earth science, and/or real samples aren’t required in the lessons. Talk to science department heads at your nearby school or the school district’s curriculum office. I’ve given collections to teachers who want to return them when they retire.
6) Give things away for club meetings and shows. Specimens can be donated for club sales or given to attendees to promote joining. You might sell specimens there if the club allows, especially if it’s specimens not found on club field trips.
7) The collector should rehome (I prefer that word to ‘dispose of’) specimens. Your family may opt for the easiest method. Selling your fossils and minerals at club shows or on eBay is a LOT of work. It’s not something your family won’t consider when you pass. Dealers may be interested in your stock at a cost that’s pennies on the retail dollar. That’s an easy way for them to build up retail inventory, and the fewer, better specimens make it worthwhile when the bulk of the collection is low-quality, low-value.
To determine if what you have is something that others will buy, attend shows to see what’s selling. Talk to dealers carrying similar material. Look at the quality and price to determine if you have something that will sell. If you want to sell at a show, research the cost.
The Legacy Question: Where will your collection go to die?
Think about your legacy. You have one, whether you realize it. The ‘do nothing’ approach, option 1, is the forgotten legacy. A life of collecting disappears when your family pays someone to haul it in a dumpster to a landfill. Or maybe it’s dumped in a gully on a farm. That might happen when a family doesn’t know what to do with it!
In the long-term legacy, option 2, part or all of the collection is donated to a museum or a school where it may be enjoyed or used to help future Earth scientists, educators, and hobbyists. This approach involves planning and developing contacts. Some museums have a budget to purchase unique specimens, but rarely whole collections.
The profitable legacy, option 3, is selling or auctioning the collection. It’s more convenient to sell a collection to one dealer. Auctions allow collectors to buy wholesale. Only high-end specimens sell for thousands of dollars.
What can you do? What did I do?
It took Ed Clement seventeen years for his father’s collection to become the Ben E. Clement Mineral Museum in 1997. With Ed’s passing in 2023, one of Ben’s granddaughters is carrying her father’s mantle. This type of legacy is rarer than platinum!
Illness or death is not preventable, but the loss of legacy is. I think Gerard Troost’s near-13,000 specimen mineral collection (see Goldstein, 1983). Started in 1810, the Troost collection, having survived several unsuccessful attempts to sell it to the State of Tennessee, its burial to keep it safe during the Civil War, and eventual sale and transfer to the Louisville Free Public Library Museum in 1880. Much of the collection was inundated by the muddy Ohio River, located a mile away, in the 1937 flood. The library museum closed in the mid-1970s, and the collection was transferred to the Museum of History and Science in 1976. That became a science center in 1988. Today, they are rehoming their collections to other museums and educational institutions, better at preserving them for the long term. The Troost collection now resides at the Indiana State Museum. It took several years to transfer because of the volume, the pandemic, and the fact that some specimens were mixed with other collections. That’s one collection that has been through hard times and shows it, but its legacy is intact.
Garnet crystals from Gerard Troost’s mineral collection, collected in the 1810s. The label is in his handwriting.
Helping several friends sell their collections makes me aware of mine. As a result, I have created a plan to help my daughters.
Does your family know your intentions?
Do you know your intentions?
Is your collection noted in your will?
Put the handling of your collection in your will in case something happens before you have a chance to do it yourself.
My collection reflects my life and interests. There are well-documented fossils and minerals. What happens to them is important to me. The will states which museums can select specimens. I investigated where my specimens would be beneficial for science. (Display is up to the exhibit designers.) I have reached out to curators, making them aware. I intend to donate before I’m too infirm – hopefully a long time from now!
I don’t mind sharing my plans to give you ideas.
The Indiana State Museum has the first choice of specimens from that state.
Illinois-Kentucky fluorspar district specimens, books, photographs, and memorabilia will go to the Ben E. Clement Mineral Museum.
Kentucky specimens can go to the Kentucky Geological Survey and the Cincinnati Museum Center’s natural history museum.
I have a few odds and ends for the Smithsonian (several crinoids to add to the previous donation and a section of the first core drilled in Antarctica, it’s a long story!).
Minerals not taken by the above museums can be sold to a dealer so my daughters can benefit.
It is much better, but not easier, to handle the transfer of your collection while you are among the living. You don’t have to give it all away – start with a few specimens.
Abrotocrinus debrae – a crinoid named after my wife (while she was alive). This is the second specimen known. This specimen will be donated to the Smithsonian.
Working in the museum field for forty years has given me experience with legacy collections. Handling them can be a wonderful or horrible experience. Ultimately, only you can prevent your life’s love and interest, your legacy, from being forgotten, perhaps buried in a landfill, unseen by future rockhounds.
If you have any questions, feel free to contact me – alangoldsteinwriter @ gmail.com.
Bibliography
Goldstein, Alan, 1984. The Mineralogical Record, Gerard Troost and His Collection, Sept. – Oct.
1989. Mineral News, What makes a mineral collection valuable to a museum? January.
Jardine, Boris, Kowal, Emma, and Bangham, Jenny, 2019, The British Journal of Natural History,
Calcite is one of the most common minerals in the earth’s crust – especially associated with sedimentary rocks. This page highlights locations and the U.S. and other countries with especially nice crystals.
For more detail on the localities, use the Mindat links under the photos.
Arizona
Calcite in spheres and elongated scalenohedral crystals. Queen Mine, Bisbee, Arizona. Purchased in Bisbee in 2000. See https://www.mindat.org/loc-3318.html
California
Blue calcite, famous from the Crestmore Quarry in Riverside, California. It mostly an industrial park now. See https://www.mindat.org/loc-3449.html
Colorado
Calcite with dolomite and quartz. From a small mine south of Ouray, Colorado. Collected in August, 1980. FOV about 2 cmCalcite from La Junta, Otero Co., Colorado obtained in 2000. See https://www.mindat.org/loc-5907.html
Connecticut
Calcite with Goethite from the Cinque Quarry, East Haven, CT. See https://www.mindat.org/loc-6789.htmlCalcite (iridescent) on barite, Rt. 9 (Ellis St. and Rt. 72 interchange (Rt 72 bypass), (no longer exists) New Britain, Hartford Co., Connecticut. FOV 3 cm. Collected by Steve Garza.Calcite in large scalenohedrons and smaller needle-like crystals. Rt. 9 (Ellis St. and Rt. 72 interchange (Rt 72 bypass), (no longer exists) New Britain, Hartford Co., Connecticut. Collected by Steve Garza.
Calcite on natrolite from the Wren Quarry, Benton Co., Oregon. Received in a trade in 2000.Calcite with minor analcime, Gopher Valley Quarry, Yamhill Co., Oregon. Obtained in 2001. See https://www.mindat.org/loc-65173.htmlCalcite in basalt from Burnt Cabin Creek, Spray, Wheeler Co., Oregon. From Lanny Ream. 2 cm FOV.
Pennsylvania
Calcite with pyrite, Oak Hall Quarry, Centre Co., Pennsylvania
Calcite with striated faces on marble, from the Conklin Quarry, Lime Rock, Lincoln Co., Rhode Island. 3 cm FOV. Collected Steve Garza.Calcite pock in white marble, Lime Rock, Lincoln Co., Rhode Island. Collected Steve Garza.Green calcite from the Conklin Quarry, 2 cm view.
Calcite in large brown crystals, close to the Johannes orebody, Malmberget, Lappland, Sweden. Received in trade summer 2005 from Aksel Österlöf, Luleå, Sweden. Collected May 16, 2001.
David Horn looking for fossils. Brick plant in background. 2010.View of an inactive mining area. The front end loader was coming from the active mine out of this photo. Another view of a previously mined area. Collected here was not real productive.An older, weathered exposure was better for finding fossils.The small fossils meant you had to get close to the outcrop.A typical exposure. The thin line in the middle is a layer of unusual sedimentary cone-in-cone structures.Deep gullies and erosion showed up after mining operations ceased. Our last visit was March 8, 2010.A few of those reddish speckles in the blue-gray clay were fossils. Most of them were pieces of ironstone. There are a few fossils among to rock sitting on top of the weathered New Providence Shale.Photographing a cluster of pyritized snails before they were collected. The snail Glabrocingulum ellenae is the most common invertebrate fossil in the mollusk-dominated Coral Ridge fauna.Mr. Cephalopod, John Catalani, looks for the tiny goniatites – ammonoid cephalopods – famous in the Coral Ridge fauna. Chris Cozart demonstrates the most practical approach to looking for fossils – hands and knees!A geodized / pyritized blastoid, Granatocrinus kentuckiensis originial named by James Conkin (different genus now).Looking for small fossils. Note the broken bricks in the ditch and the road in the background.The Button Mold fauna is perhaps 10-feet above the Coral Ridge – calcified instead of pyritized. Mostly a different fauna with more crinoids and brachiopods, less mollusks.A crinoid basal ring is among the ironstone fragments (BMK fauna).Numerous crinoid columns and body plates are in the BMK fauna.
Fossils
Winchelloceras goniatite ammonoidWinchelloceras through a microscopePolaricyclus ammoniod on ironstone nodule through a microscopeMichelinoceras orthocone nautiloid – virtually complete!Glabrocingulum ellenae – the common snailSinuitina annae – perhaps a monoplacophoranSinuitina annae showing detail in a microscopeLophospira – a taller and much rarer gastropod than Glabrocingulum.Loxonema sp. with wonderful growth line preservation. Through a scope.Pair of Loxonema snails – unusual find.Bucanella sp. – a very rare bellerophont snail a few mm wide.Platyceras – another rare genus of snail in the coral Ridge fauna.
