THE CMLC NEWS
The Canterbury Mineral & Lapidary Club Inc.
Newsletter for May 2017
President -- Scott Hardwick
Phone 3289322
Treasurer -- Lynda Alexander
Phone 3476393
Secretary -- David Macdonald
Phone 3520304
Editor
--Craig McGregor
Phone 9818621
Address: 14 Reynolds Ave Bishopdale, Christchurch
8053
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.cmlclub.org.nz
Meeting Venue & Clubrooms: 110 Waltham Road,
Waltham, Christchurch 7:30 pm on the second Thursday of the month [Feb. to Nov.]
General Meeting: ...................... May 11, June 8, July 13
Committee Meeting: ………
May 18, June 15, July 20
Micro Mineral Meeting: ............. May 4, June 1, July 6
Please remember to sign into the meeting attendance book at the door and
pay the $2 door entry.
The May Meeting: Cr aig McGr egor , David Macdonald, Mike Adams,
and Roger Knowles will talk about their recent fossicking trips in Australia.
Supper Duty: David Macdonald, Roger Knowles, Wayne and Debbie
Rickard, Myles McIntyre
Auction at the May Meeting: J ohn Taylor will be offer ing up some of
his collecting material for auction.
Field Trip: We ar e still tr ying to negotiate for access to Whitecliffs.
Hopefully we will be able to hear some favourable news soon.
PAGE 1
April Monthly Competition Results
1st
2nd
3rd
Lapidary:
Any polished
material from Malcolm LuxJohn Taylor
High Peak
ton
Forest
Robin Hall
Fossil
Any fossil
from Southland
David Macdonald
No entry
Mineral:
Limonite rattle stone from John Taylor
Otago
Robin Hall
No entry
Alphabet
Cup:
vw
Errol Hitt
Malcolm
Luxton
John Taylor
Robin Hall
May Monthly Competition .
Lapidary: Any polished greenstone/jade/nephrite
Fossil
Any fossil from the North Island
Mineral: Any mineral from the North Island
Alphabet Cup: xyz
A find or purchase during the last month.
Note: The alphabet cup is for a specimen fr om a r egion or countr y
starting with the nominated letters.
Grits and Tin Oxide: Contact Malcolm Luxton or Robin Hall
Tin Oxide;
1kg
$90.00
500 grms $45.00
250 grms $25.00
125 grms $13.00
Silicone Grit 600,
1kg $25.00
500 gms $13.00
250 gms $7.00
400 grit.
1 kg
$17.00
500 gms $9.00
250 gms $5.00
80 grit.
1 kg
$18.50 kg
PAGE 2
Annual Subscription: These ar e now due, and an invoice is attached
to this newsletter. Please note there is an early payment discount if paid
by 31 May. You can also easily pay via Internet banking.
Club Committee Membership: We ar e still desper ately looking for
members to participate in the administration of the club, by serving on the
Committee. The annual elections come up in June and we need more
members for the Committee. If you are interested and would consider
coming onto the committee, please fill out the attached committee nomination form and hand in at the May meeting.
To help encourage more people onto the committee, it has been decided
that committee meetings after the AGM in June will be held at a different
time. This will be done on a trial basis to see if some members who live
further afield, and others, could be encouraged to come onto the committee.
So, from July, Committee meetings will be held from 6.30 p.m. to 7.30
p.m. on the same night as the General meeting, in the workshop area.
Glossopteris
Glossopteris, genus of fossilized woody plants known from rocks that
have been dated to the Permian and Triassic periods (roughly 300 to 200
million years ago), deposited on the southern supercontinent of Gondwana. Glossopteris occurred in a variety of growth forms.
The Glossopteridales arose in the Southern Hemisphere around the beginning of the Permian Period (298.9 million years ago), but became extinct
during the end-Permian mass extinction. Their distribution across several,
now detached, landmasses led Eduard Suess, amongst others, to propose
that the southern continents were once amalgamated into a single supercontinent—Pangea. These plants went on to become the dominant elements of the southern flora through the rest of the Permian but
disappeared in almost all places at the end of the Permian (252.17 million
years ago). The only convincing Triassic records are very earliest Triassic
leaves from Nidpur, India, but even these records are somewhat questionable owing to faulting and complex juxtapositioning of Permian and Triassic strata at Nidpur. Although most modern palaeobotany textbooks cite
the continuation of glossopterids into later parts of the Triassic and, in
some cases into the Jurassic, these ranges are erroneous and are based on
misidentification of morphologically similar leaves such
as Gontriglossa,Sagenopteris, or Mexiglossa. Glossopterids were, thus,
PAGE 3
one of the major casualties of the end-Permian mass extinction event.
More than 70 fossil species of this genus have been recognized
in India alone, with additional species from South America, Australia,Africa, Madagascar[ and Antarctica. Essentially, Glossopteris was restricted to the middle- and high-latitude parts of
Gondwana during the Permian and was an important contributor to the
vast Permian coal deposits of the Southern Hemisphere continents. Most
northern parts of South America and Africa lack Glossopteris and its associated organs. However, in recent years a few disparate localities in Morocco, Oman, Anatolia, the western part of the island of New Guinea,
Thailand and Laos have yielded fossils that are of possible glossopterid
affinity. These peri-gondwanan records commonly occur together with
Cathaysian or Euramerican plant species—the assemblages representing a
zone of mixing between the strongly provincial floras of the Permian.
Apart from those in India and the peri-gondwanan localities, a few other
fossils from the Northern Hemisphere have been assigned to this group,
but these are not identified with great certainty. For example, specimens
assigned to Glossopteris from the far east of Russia in the 1960s are more
likely to be misdentifications of other gymnosperms such as Pursongia.
Confident assignment of fossil leaves to Glossopteris normally requires
PAGE 4
their co-preservation with the distinctive segmented roots of this group
(called Vertebraria) or with the distinctive fertile organs.
Glossopteris was a woody, seed-bearing shrub or tree, some apparently
reaching 30 metres (98 ft) tall. They had a softwood interior that resembles conifers of the family Araucariaceae.[24] Seeds were borne on one
side of variably branched or fused structures,
and microsporangia containing pollen were borne in clusters at the tips of
slender filaments. Both the seed- and pollen-bearing organs were partially
fused (adnate) to the leaves, or, in some cases, possibly positioned in
the axils of leaves. The homologies of the flattened seed-bearing structures have remained particularly controversial with some arguing that the
fertile organs represent megasporophylls (fertile leaves) whereas others
have interpreted the structures as flattened, seed-bearing, axillary axes
(cladodes). It is unclear whether glossopterids
were monoecious or dioecious. - W ikipedia.org
These Glossopteris leaves are from Mt Wild in Antarctica. Hardy trees
known as Glossopteris lived alongside ice sheets in the supercontinent
Gondwana around 265 million years ago. They had thick, fleshy, fibrous
PAGE 5
leaves. A few fragments of Glossopteris leaves have also been found in
Permian marine sedimentary rocks in the Wairaki Hills, Southland. This is
evidence that New Zealand was once part of Gondwana as these fossil
leaves have also been found in India, South Africa, South America, Tasmania, mainland Australia and Antarctica, which were all parts of Gondwana. - http://www.teara.govt.nz
Craig McG, Catherine, Craig McW, Andrew, Ursula and Ian collecting
Glossopteris near Dunedoo, New South Wales.
PAGE 6
Open 7 days 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
PAGE 7
GEMSTONE & FOSSIL MUSEUM
67 HILLVIEW ROAD,
BIRDLINGS FLAT
Owners: Vince & Colleen Burke
Phone:
(03) 329 0812
Email: [email protected]
Web: http://gemstoneandfossilmuseum.co.nz/
Open 9:30am till 5:00pm (seven days a week)
Sender CMLC 14 Reynolds Ave Bishopdale, Christchurch 8053
«Field1»
«Field2»
«Field3»
«Field4»
«Field5»
PAGE 8