Category: News

The Tualatin Valley Rock and Gem Club likes to keep members informed on the news in our industry about earth sciences, club activities, community activities, and news we can use for our hearts made of stone – melted by our passion for rocks and gems.

This category features such newsworthy items.

If you are a member of our club and would like to submit newsworthy bits to this site or the newsletter, please let us know at our regular meetings or contact us.
For more information on Tualatin Valley Rock and Gem activities, check out our events category and calendar. If you would like more information on rock collecting, identification, and resources, check out our Education page and Earth Sciences topics.

If you would like to become a member, please join us. If you have any questions or need more information, please contact us so we may help.

In Memory and Recognition

Long term tvgc member, Rose Tacholsky Jackson passed away recently after a long battle with cancer. She fought long and hard and kept positive in the face of difficulty. Even in the midst of her worst days, she was still amazed by the beauty of creation around her. She was caring and proud of her husband, kids, and grandkids. She loved her family and friends and always had something wonderful to say about them and enjoyed her many memories of time spent with them. Her love of all things rocks was infectious. She and her husband Tom, would spend many days and miles traveling to rock shows and meeting up with old friends and making new ones.

We, along with her family, will miss Rose’s contributions, strength, loyalty, perseverance, joyfulness, love of beauty, and life. You will be missed! 🕊

Our May 13th Meeting, at 7:30 pm on zoom

Join us and author Leslie Moclock, (many of you will remember her as former curator of the Rice NW Museum of Rocks and Minerals) as she talks about the subject of her new book Rocks, Minerals and Geology of the Pacific Northwest, a new field guide to the landscapes of Oregon and Washington. This book helps you learn to read the story of the rocks, from how to identify and name the things you see to understanding what those features signify in the fascinating geological history of our region. It covers geology at all scales, from mineral crystals to mountains, with hundreds of photographs and many illustrations and diagrams.

Leslie Moclock has an MS in geology from the University of California–Davis, where she taught field and laboratory geology. She held the position of curator at the Rice Northwest Museum of Rocks and Minerals in Hillsboro, Oregon, for five years, where she enjoyed many opportunities to bring science to the public.

Join our meeting at the specified time by simply clicking the link provided below:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7622599108?pwd=TlN6QUpQeWVYdWRNUEhEZGI5ZDhTQT09

New Year Meetings Information

🎆Happy New Year to all!🎉 May 2021 be an extraordinarily good one (in health and happiness). We hope that everyone continues to grow in knowledge and come together as community in good faith.

As everyone knows, we will continue our meetings on zoom with our normal meeting times on the second Thursday until further notice. Members may wish to share the zoom link with friends also interested in rocks, fossils etc.. Also, share your favorite 2020 rock finds, stories, purchases and gifts at any of our meetings.

Join us on January 14th – For this meeting, you might also consider any fossil amber with insects or pictures of them to share. Our first meeting topic of the new year starts off with Author Dr. William Orr (who wrote “Oregon Fossils & Oregon Geology to name a few) with a presentation on Fossil Insects.

Fun fossil facts – Oldest known fossil of an insect dates back to 400 million years. One of the insects with the largest wingspan was the Meganeura (actually classified as a Griffinflies) with a wingspan of over 27 inches from about 300 million years ago that looked like a dragonfly. Discovered in France and England.

Very tiny mystery insect – Photo By C. Yablok

Virtual meeting for December 10th at 7:30pm

Our meeting topics include installation of officers for the new year of 2021 and A presentation given by Matthew Gould.

Matthew is an accomplished sphere maker, A wonderfully enthusiastic individual who has built very strong connections in the rock community other than just the fact that he has fascinating tips for the lapidary work.

So bring a drink and some snacks (or even a dinner) to the zoom meeting as you meet our new officers of the board or bring questions for Matthew Gould and learn about his work.

Virtual online zoom November 12th meeting

The presentation for this Thursday, November 12, 2020. Will be done by Bob O’Black. He has a great presentation on fluorescents in rocks and minerals.

We will also be having our election of officers just following. Here are the current candidates:
President – Casey Truman, Vice President – Richelle Borlaug, Treasurer – Linda Harvey, Secretary – Bill Harvey, Board Member – Casey Sessions, Board Member (Alternate) – Brett Cooper.

Bob Oblack is a retired electrical engineer from Tektronix. He has attended Dr. Bill Orr’s geology classes at Chemeketa Community College…to better understand the science that underlies our rockhounding hobby.
Bob has been a Rockhound ever since he was able to walk on the beach looking for agates. It’s “The Thrill of the Hunt” that drives his passion for Rockhounding. He joined the NARG fossil club and the Fluorescent Mineral Society to add breadth and depth to “The Thrill of the Hunt”.
Bob lives near the Molalla River and with support from the Molalla Culture and Art Committee created two videos about the Columbia River Basalt (CRB) flows and geologic points of interest within the Wild and Scenic Molalla River Corridor and traced the CRB flows from the Molalla River Corridor to the pacific ocean. These videos can be viewed on the Welcome Molalla YouTube channel.
Here are the links:
https://youtu.be/MzxqWmtgKPY
https://youtu.be/uC84I15Qnxk
Bob volunteers his time to help the Clackamette club promote their annual rock show. He shares his knowledge of Molalla Are Geology and Fluorescent Minerals with others via Home-Schooled-Children Field Trips and presentations like this.

Virtual Meeting Presentations for October

The following meetings for October will be held virtually through Zoom.com on your computer.

One way to do this is 1) go to zoom.com on your computer. 2) On the opening page click at the top “join a meeting” (You do not need a zoom account or to register to join the meeting! But, have your meeting ID and the password ready to be entered which is sent to you through the membership email before the meeting).

The easier way – From the email sent to you from the club under “Join Zoom Meeting” click the underlined link. (this already has the meeting id and password embedded in the link).

Now zoom will prompt you with an “open link” click this.

After you click “open link”, next click “join with video” and then click “join with audio”.

You may also join the meeting on an apple device or on your mobile device by the downloaded zoom app just enter the meeting id and password. Or after you have the app loaded on your phone go to the email that was sent to you and click the underlined link under the words “Join zoom Meeting“.

October 8th, at 7:30 pm

Topic is “Dynamic Geologic History of the National Parks of the Pacific Northwest” presented by Scott Burns.

7910B49C-A228-4699-87AA-01A4FC732BA8 — Mt. Hood, Photo by C. Yablok

For more on geology, fossils and minerals check out our membership Sharing page

Virtual Meeting Updates

Future Speaker Presentations

for June and July

The following meetings for June and July will be held virtually through Zoom.com. So on your computer google zoom.com, then click on zoom.com once your on the opening page click this link on the top right click “join a meeting” and have your meeting ID and the password ready to be entered (which will be sent to you through the membership email before the meeting). If you haven’t tried it, it is pretty easy. You can create an account but it is not necessary.

After you type in the meeting id and password click “open link” as prompted.

After you click “open link”, click join with video and then join with audio.

You might want to join a little early and you will be waiting until the host starts the meeting. Also before the meeting starts you can test you laptop or pc audio and video.

You may also join the meeting on an apple device or on your mobile device by the downloaded zoom app just enter the meeting id and password.

June 11th – 7:30 pm

Via Zoom video conference meeting “Geological Day Trips from the Portland Area” By Garret Romaine.

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July 9th, 2020 at 7:30pm

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Please return to this post as more updates and or changes may occur.

Also, in the light of suspension of physical meetings this site has created a Membership sharing page

If you would like to contribute (as a member), what you have been working on with pictures or any cool hobby related links, or books you have been reading in this time where we have not been able to join with each other in person. Please share your your information through the contact page on this site. Also tell the website helper in the contact form, whether you want your name posted with your share. blue-lace-agate-tumble-stone-30-40mm

Non profit Annual gem and mineral show preparations for March 2020

Tualatin Valley Gem Club, wishes everyone a very healthy, safe and happy holidays.

When we come back for our first meeting in the new year it will also be time to start thinking of our annual show. This show helps our non profit club to pay for things such as meeting space, programs and more. Last year, people enjoyed the displays, vendors and kids corner. It’s not too early to start thinking about our new displays and games for kids corner.

Below is our new flyer for the show and please contact me through the website if you would like some additional paper flyers to post at places, or if you would like a jpeg file of the flyer, as this is for official press release.

tvgc2020sf