FGMS celebrates 61st anniversary at Oct. 11 meeting

FALLBROOK – The Fallbrook Gem and Mineral Society will celebrate its 61st anniversary at its October general meeting.

Beginning a new tradition, the Oct. 11 meeting will start with an optional dinner and social gathering. The celebration and meeting will be held at Fallbrook Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 1924, 1175 Old Stage Road.

The public is invited to join the society in celebrating an evening of "Wining, Dining and Mining." The festivities begin 5:30 p.m. with cocktails available for purchase from the VFW bar and special jazz musical entertainment compliments of guest speaker Dr. Matthew Taylor.

The optional dinner, featuring medallions of pork tenderloin with port wine sauce and bananas Foster for dessert, starts 6 p.m. and costs $18 per person. Members and FGMS supporters can RSVP to Mick Palculich by Oct. 6 by calling (760) 802-6773 or by emailing [email protected].

The meeting will commence 7 p.m. and feature an anniversary raffle with special prizes, including a pair of 14 karat gold amethyst earrings, a Smithsonian "Rock and Gem" 10-book box set, a multi-mineral carved eagle and a decorative miner figurine.

Taylor is an internationally renowned geologist, mineralogist and mining expert. When he inherited his grandfather's mineral collection as a young boy, it contained two bi-color tourmaline crystals from San Diego County's famous Himalaya Mine. From that point on, minerals fascinated him, he said. They were the catalyst for long-term mentoring relationships with local miners, especially Roger Helsel and Norm Dawson, owner of Pala's White Queen mine.

Taylor's curiosity led him to study well beyond the basics of geology and mineralogy, taking him to undergraduate studies at Humboldt State University and graduate programs at San Diego State University, the University of California Riverside, the University of Manitoba in Canada and Masaryk University in the Czech Republic, earning multiple degrees and in many interconnected disciplines.

Everyone is invited to hear his presentation, "A Gel Model for the Formation of Granitic Pegmatites: Evidence from Quartz."

For questions, call (760)728-1130. Fallbrook Gem and Mineral Society is a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting the study and appreciation of mineralogy, paleontology and related earth sciences and the arts.

Submitted by Fallbrook Gem and Mineral Society.