- Rock collector Kevin Freedman, 10, shows off fluoritegalena, left, and sandstone. Below, marble from Sicily.
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- More about rocks: Visit the Buffalo Geological Society Gem, Mineral and Fossil Show from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. March 24 and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. March 25, at the Erie County Fairgrounds in Hamburg. Admission is $5. Children 12 and under get in free. The event includes a mini-mine where kids “mine” minerals and fossils and take them home.
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- Nathan Mutka, 10, looks at citrine crystals that he grew himself.
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ROCK fans
TWO COUSINS KNOW THEIR GEODES FROM THEIR AGATES
By JEAN WESTMOORE NeXt Editor
Updated: 03/14/07 6:33 AM
Nathan Mutka has his favorite rocks, including a sparkling geode, amethyst and petrified wood, displayed under a special light in the basement of his Amherst home.
Kevin Freedman keeps his rock collection, including a piece of copper, a pretty green chunk of fluorite/galena and blocks of halite from a salt mine in Sicily on shelves in the bedroom of his Grand Island home.
The cousins, who were born 10 days apart, share a love of rock collecting inherited from their grandmother, Maryann Saccomando Freedman, who is a longtime member of the Buffalo Geological Society.
The boys last spring became the first junior exhibitors ever to win Best in Show for their exhibit on pyrite (or fool’s gold) at the society’s Gem, Mineral and Fossil Show at the Hamburg Fairgrounds. For months they’ve been hard at work on their display on this year’s theme: “Agate: Nature’s Stained Glass Window.”
Nathan, a fifth-grader at the Kadimah School of Buffalo, is partial to amethysts, valued for their beautiful purple color.
His rocks are stored in clear-plastic storage bins with favorites on a high shelf under lights. “This is my display of really cool rocks. I like the color, I like how it sparkles,” he says. He shows off a bright yellow citrine, which he made starting with a plain rock and a mixture from a crystal kit. Another favorite is the vial of gold specks his grandmother brought him from Alaska.
Buying a geode can be a gamble, Nathan advises, because “you’re not absolutely sure from the outside” what it will look like. “I bought it whole and they cut it open for me,” he said. He also cautioned: “If you want really nice rocks, you have to spend money at auctions.”
Both cousins have pebbles of lava from Mount Etna they found during a family vacation in Sicily. Rocks are auctioned at geological society meetings, where the cousins have volunteered as runners. The boys and their siblings also help out with the Mini- Mine at the society’s annual show, where young visitors scoop through bins of sawdust and get to take home the rocks they find there. Saccomando Freedman says that kids face a disadvantage in rock collecting because quarries “won’t let them on the site until they’re over 18.”
Kevin’s maternal
grandfather owns
a sand and gravel pit
in Brockport where the family goes rock collecting, his mom, Denise says. “All of us enjoy looking for rocks,” she said. They’ve also dug fossils at the Penn-Dixie site in Hamburg.
A rock tumbler was whirring along in Kevin’s basement. It takes 3 and a half weeks to polish the rocks, first with coarse grit, then fine grit, then prepolish, then polish, then detergent. More delicate rocks must be polished by hand.
Bob Hoffman, co-chair of last spring’s show, noted that it was the first time in the society’s 39-year history that “Best in Show” went to a junior exhibit.
These boys know their rocks. Kevin’s class at Huth Road Elementary School on Grand Island was studying earth science and “my teacher said I know more about rocks than she does,” Kevin said.