Our 58th annual show is this weekend. We are having demonstrations by the Florescent Mineral Society, The American Opal Society and the Orange County Gold Miners Club as well as many other demonstrators doing sphere making, opal cutting, mineral identification, carving and LOTS of other fun things.

We are having a tool and machinery sale to support the Waldo Ford Scholarship at El Camino College.

There will be home made pies, cakes and chili.

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Zoisite is a calcium aluminium hydroxy sorosilicate belonging to the epidote group of minerals. Zoisite is named after the Slovene scientist Baron Sigmund Zois von Edelstein (Žiga Zois), who realized that this was an unknown mineral when it was brought to him by the mineral dealer Simon Prešern, who had discovered it in the Saualpe mountains (Svinška planina) of Carinthia in 1805. Zoisite was first known as saualpite, after its type locality. Transparent material is fashioned into gemstones while translucent-to-opaque material is usually carved into sculptural works. The latter is sometimes shot through with ruby crystals, which are completely opaque and unsuited to use as gems, yet are well colored and contrast strikingly against the green matrix of the zoisite.

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Tanzanite is the blue/purple variety of the mineral zoisite (Ca₂(Al. OH)Al₂(SiO₄)₃) discovered in the Meralani Hills of northern Tanzania in 1967, near the city of Arusha. It is a popular and valuable gemstone when cut, although its durability is somewhat lacking; its tendency to break sometimes precludes appropriate use as a ring stone. Tanzanite is noted for its remarkably strong trichroism, appearing alternately sapphire blue, violet, and sage-green depending on crystal orientation. However, most tanzanite is subjected to artificial heat treatment to improve its colour: this significantly subdues its trichroism.

Background

On July 7, 1967, Manuel de Souza, a Goan tailor and part-time gold prospector living in Arusha (Tanzania) found transparent fragments of vivid blue and blue & purple gem crystals on a ridge near Mererani, some 40 km southeast of Arusha.

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Saturday, March 31, 2007

2 p.m.

“Jade: Stone of Heaven”

Lecture in the Auditorium of Pacific Asia Museum by gemologist Richard
Hughes, who has spent close to half his life in Asia, and has traveled
to scores of countries in search of precious stones.

Known to the Chinese as the “Stone of Heaven,” jade is one of
mankind’s most beguiling gemstones. While the term “jade” includes
both nephrite and jadeite, only jadeite occurs in the coveted
“imperial” type, and for this the world has but one source, Upper
Burma. It is these mines which are the subject of this program.
Fortune-seekers from all over Asia are drawn to the mines amidst a
heady atmosphere akin to the gold rush days of the old American West.
Entire families are obsessed with the search for the green stone. Some
have been turned into overnight millionaires by digging up a brown
boulder in their back yards.

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