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generally meets the third Wednesday of each month, August through May. 2025: NEW MEETING LOCATION Spring 2025: We are meeting at the Centre LifeLink EMS building, off Puddintown Road near College Avenue, State College. See a Google Map. All are welcome to attend our meetings! Parents must provide supervision of minors. Mineral collectors and rockhounds, earth scientists and dinosaur lovers will all enjoy our activities. |
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No NMS meetings or Bulletins in June or July
by Cole McCormick, Ph.D. Carbonate Geochemist Postdoctoral Scholar The Pennsylvania State University at Centre LifeLink EMS building, 125 Puddintown Rd, State College, PA 16801 (map) 7:45 to 8:00 p.m.: Announcements, door prizes, sales about 8:00 p.m.: featured program The event has free admission, free refreshments and free parking at the door, and is open to all; parents/guardians must provide supervision of minors. Dolomite [CaMg(CO3)2] is a mineral that is thermodynamically stable at Earth surface conditions, forming thick accumulations of sedimentary rocks in the crust. Although dolomite forms a significant proportion of ancient carbonate rocks, it has rarely, if ever, been observed to form in natural geological settings and we have never been able to synthesize it in the laboratory at low-temperature (<50°C). The apparent contradiction between the abundance of dolomite in the geological record, its absence in modern settings, and the inability to form dolomite in the laboratory is a long-standing mystery known as ‘The Dolomite Problem’. This talk will present the fundamentals of dolomite petrology and mineralogy, with a discussion of natural examples from the geological record where we have shed light on "The Dolomite Problem." Some online presentations of interest: -------------------------- From NMS: Videos of many of our programs since 2020 are available here. -------------------------- From other sources: Jeri Jones' Zoom Rock Room: Weekly Zoom geology presentations, mostly related to Pennsylvania. https://www.youtube.com/@jerijones4202. The staff of the Penn State Earth & Mineral Sciences Museum and Art Gallery maintains a Facebook page. They also have videos on YouTube: Museum Gallery Tour: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jJ4NR4ICoc National Fossil Day October 16, 2024 Earth Science Week October 13-19 The National Park Service's National Fossil Day was Wednesday, October 16, in the middle of Earth Science Week, October 13 - 19, 2024, celebrating the theme "Earth Science Everywhere." Educational materials are available. Videos of the 2020 Dallas Mineral Collecting Symposium are still available by following the links at https://www.dallassymposium.org/2020-dmcs/. VIRTUAL FIELD TRIPS, TOURS, GALLERIES, COURSES, MORE! With thanks for many of these to AFMS April 2020 Newsletter and Three Rivers Gem & Mineral Society of Fort Wayne Indiana's The Strata Data newsletter. Smithsonian Scroll down to see the tips before starting a tour. Yale - Peabody Museum of Natural History Via Rock & Gem magazine web site (thanks go to them); scroll down to find the image that links to the tour. South Dakota School of Mines & Technology - Mosasaur at Museum of Geology Scroll down to 'YouTube Playlist" Houston Museum of Natural Science Dinosaurs! Rice Northwest Museum of Rocks & Minerals Society of Mineral Museum Professionals (SMMP) Curator's Pick Gallery Curators choose their favorite specimens. Hosted by Mindat. SMMP Wulfenite Gallery Geology of the National Parks Penn State GEOSC 10 virtual field trips American Southwest Virtual Museum Virtual Museum of Minerals and Molecules Click on Displays at upper right Davidson Institute of Science Education, of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, has links to several more museum virtual tours worldwide, including natural history museums. Podcast of GEOL-101 type lectures (podcasts #1 to 28). Videos linked from the web site also; all by Nick Zentner of Central Washington University. For additional current news see our NMS Bulletin (link at top of sidebar at left). |
 NMS has in stock T-shirts in Galapagos blue, Texas orange (both shown here) and royal blue. 
A station at our Minerals Junior Education Day 
2020: CELESTINE: Pennsylvania State Mineral?See also Nov. 2020 Bulletin. 
Collecting crystals in a quarry 
We have NMS posters for sale! |
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