PLS Members’ Field Trip ‘Show and Tell’ Experiences Subject of Tuesday, October 15th Program Meeting, 7:00 pm

Location: Fireside Room at the Santa Anita Church

The Pasadena Lapidary Society October General Meeting will be held in the Fireside Room because our regular room is going to be used for election training. As PLS President David Lacy phrased: “the meeting will be very cozy”. It would be difficult to set up a slide show in the Fireside Room or outside depending on the weather, so we will not have an invited speaker in October. Instead, we will feature three of our club members — Sue Dekany, Curtis Kan and Daniel Nishimura — who will give ‘show and tell’ talks about recent
field trips to the Clear Creek, CA area, the Dead Camel Mountains, NV and McDermitt in OR/NV. Daniel’s upcoming speech is going to be about his adventure collecting Wonderstone in the Yellow Mountains near Fallon, NV.

This program meeting takes place on Tuesday, October 15, 2024, at 7:00 p.m. in the Fireside Room of The Santa Anita Church, 226 W. Colorado Blvd., Arcadia, CA 91007.

Come join us! Doors open at 6:30, admission is free; open to the public. Enjoy refreshments while checking out the display table; bring a rock specimen you’d like identified. We hope to see you there!

Walt Wright Speaks on Petrified Wood for September Program Meeting

September 17, 2024 at 7:00 p.m.


Walt Wright is an expert botanist, ecologist, geologist, and paleobotanist from Brea, California. He has worked as a Naturalist for the U.S. Forest Service, and in education and research at the University of California, Riverside. He has written articles and given numerous classes, seminars, and lectures on how petrified wood is formed and identified. He has been collecting petrified wood since he was 10 years old, when his mother gave him a piece. To date, he has over 10,000 pieces in his collection.

This program meeting takes place on Tuesday, September 17, 2024, at 7:00 p.m. in the Fellowship Hall of The Santa Anita Church, 226 W. Colorado Blvd., Arcadia, CA 91007.

Come join us! Doors open at 6:30, admission is free; open to the public. Enjoy refreshments while checking out the display table; bring a rock specimen you’d like identified. We hope to see you there!

Silicates Subject of August 20th Program Meeting

This program meeting starts at 7:00 p.m. in the Fellowship Hall of The Santa Anita Church, 226 W. Colorado Blvd., Arcadia, CA 91007. Come to learn and make new friends; open to the public, free admission. 

Celebrating a Milestone

Commendation from the City of Pasadena in recognition of PLS’ 75th Anniversary.

For Pasadena Lapidary Society’s July 2024 meeting, we celebrated our 75th Anniversary as a California non-profit corporation, having incorporated in 1949. Several past club presidents were in attendance, and current PLS president David Lacy presented a Commendation from the City of Pasadena in recognition of our anniversary.

A Silent Auction was held featuring a variety of mineral slabs, specimens, jewelry and lapidary related items, and members enjoyed an Ice Cream Social as part of the festivities.

A beautiful gem tree, made by PLS
member Ferdie Sanchez, was on display.
Leaves are tourmaline chips, trunk copper wire, and base is opalized petrified wood.

Display cases containing members’ jewelry creations and specimen collections were on display for attendees to check out, while a slide show provided a glimpse into the Club’s past and present activities: annual shows, field trips, workshops, and community outreach for STEM/STEAM students. What a great evening we had!

Australasian Tektites Explored with Paolo Sanchez at Tuesday, June 18th Program Meeting, 7:00 p.m.

The Laos Impact Expedition: Australasian Tektites and the Hunt for their Lost Source

Paolo Sanchez in Laos

Tektites, glass blobs formed from melting terrestrial material from a high-energy meteor impact, are found all over the world. More often than not, tektites seen in the gem and mineral market come from Southeast Asia and are a part of the larger Australasian tektite strewn field, an area covering around ten percent of Earth’s surface. Despite their prominence and over a century of research done on these glasses, their source crater has remained elusive until 2019, where researchers proposed the site of a 790,000-year-old meteor impact buried under ancient lava flows and jungles of southwestern Laos. Here, PLS member Paolo Sanchez delves into a recent expedition that he and other geoscientists took to examine the geology of the potential crater, and what they found (including a lot of tektites, of course).

Tektite

In the ongoing observance of our 75th anniversary as Pasadena Lapidary Society, member Nancy Robb will provide a presentation on the history of Junior Members of PLS over the years.

This program meeting takes place at 7:00 p.m. in the Fellowship Hall of The Santa Anita Church, 226 W. Colorado Blvd., Arcadia, CA 91007. 

Come join us! Admission is free; open to the public. Enjoy refreshments while checking out the display table; bring a rock specimen you’d like identified. See you there!

Tuesday, May 21 Program Meeting, 7:00

For our May Rock of the Month talk, PLS member Nancy Robb will provide a slide presentation on Pasadena Lapidary Society’s annual shows held from the 1940s to the 2000s, in a continuation of our 75th Anniversary observance.

This program meeting takes place at 7:00 p.m. in the Fellowship Hall of The Santa Anita Church, 226 W. Colorado Blvd., Arcadia, CA 91007.

Admission is free; open to the public. Enjoy refreshments while checking out the display table; bring a rock specimen you’d like identified. See you there!

Stone Stories — Rocks and the Legends Associated With Them

A chunk of Actinolite collected from a memorable
visit to Wrightwood. Photo courtesy E. Weston

Community Outreach Saturday March 16th

Pasadena Lapidary Society shared our love of rocks and lapidary at the Muir High School Science Fair this past weekend

(Left to right) PLS members David, Sue and Sasha

A lovely chessboard on display with other
lapidary artwork and rock specimens.

PLS member Barna, ready to talk rocks and geology.

Fluorescent mineral exhibit with UV light box.

Crystal structure poster

PLS members Barna (foreground) and Sasha (opposite).

Meteorites Subject of March 19 Program Meeting with Dr. Nick Gessler

Spotlight on Tumbling (Rocks, That is) for February 20th Program Meeting

Pasadena Lapidary Society (PLS) members provide this month’s program at 7:00 p.m. , Tuesday, February 20, 2024 — FIRESIDE ROOM (not Fellowship Hall) of the Santa Anita Church

Rock tumbling is the process of polishing rocks and minerals in a rock tumbler. This involves adding stones or minerals to the rock tumbler along with some abrasives, such as grit, fillers, and water. Phil Lahr will give a presentation on tumbling, discussing the basics – machines, grits, and processes involved. He will also have samples of rock polishing at various stages so you can see and feel the difference from one stage to the next. This is a great educational program for new rockhounds, and a refresher for older ones.

As part of our observance of PLS’ 75th Anniversary this year, Nancy Robb plans to continue her talk on PLS’ history.

Our Rock of the Month talk for February will be presented by Sue Pang as she discusses this month’s birthstone, Amethyst.

This program meeting takes place on Tuesday, January 20, 2024, at 7:00 p.m. in the (**DIFFERENT ROOM, SAME ADDRESS**) FIRESIDE ROOM of The Santa Anita Church, 226 W. Colorado Blvd., Arcadia, CA 91007. Come join us! Doors open at 6:30, admission is free; open to the public. Enjoy refreshments while checking out the display table; bring a rock specimen you’d like identified. We hope to see you there!