Reliving Field Trips and Thinking Forward

In the event you are craving a club-sponsored rockhounding field trip, you are not alone. With that being the case, we thought we could at least live vicariously through a report detailing club-hosted field trips that took place just before the formation of restrictions in response to COVID-19, and news of field trip planning underway.

- ANTOINETTE RAHN

First up is the North Mississippi Gem & Mineral Society’s (NMGMS) report of its spring break trip to the Park Hills area of southeastern Missouri. Joining the NMGMS were members of the Ozark Earth Science Club, to form a group of about 20 rockhounds. The two-day field trip included visits to multiple locations to satisfy a rockhounds’ desire to dig and to learn.

Providing an insightful recap of this dig, which appeared in the NMGMS’ newsletter, The Nugget, is Sophie Gunther, president of the Rockheads group, the junior program of the NMGMS.

Sophie had this to say about the experience of rockhounding in an area of industrial property, known for its barite, “I liked that it had a little creek so we could wash the rocks and that they had dug up fresh piles of dirt to look through. There were nice specimens of barite mixed with druzy.”