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A Mystical Story
I call this a Mystical story because it contains a natural phenomenon that has either a simple answer or is unexplainable.
It was the summer of 1968, and I had returned to the Colorado School of Mines on a doctoral program in ore deposits after working for 15 years in the oil fields as a Geological Engineer.
Through the kind suggestion of Dr. Dave Coolbaugh, the Director of Exploration for Asarco Mexicana, I was studying the lead/zinc deposits at Charcas, San Luis Potosi, Mexico, 100km north of the city of San Luis Potosi.
No surface mapping had been carried out within 60-80km of this area, and I couldn’t identify the local formations based on descriptions from the nearest mapped areas in Concepcion del Oro to the north. At Concepcion del Oro, as here at Charcas, the section consisted of Jurassic-Cretaceous limestones. At Concepcion del Oro, the light-gray limestones were described as “light-gray, finely-crystalline limestones with a faint yellow hue, or pink hue, or purple hue”. The faint colors were unique to specific formations, and permitted instant recognition of the particular formation.
The light-gray limestones at Charcas didn’t have any hint of color. They were all light-gray and I had no idea of the identity of any of the limestone formations.
But my wife, Emma Lou, and I, and our two sons, 10 and 15, were there in the mountains at the mining unit for the three summer months, and so I decided to map what I saw, and do as much work as possible.
Toward the end of the three-month period, a field party of geologists with Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) stayed in the local town and took me through my study area. They told me the names and limits of the various formations and gave me some valuable pointers related to the bed-thickness, chert types, and colors that helped to identify the formations. Colors that I couldn’t see.
I asked about the descriptions of the limestones at Concepcion del Oro that also included colors. The Mexican geologists were obviously skilled, intelligent, experienced, and probably honest. They told me a very strange account that, during the first three-to-six months of mapping those formations, no geologists could see the colors. But, that after a time in the field, the colors became quite evident. In the interest of scientific certainty, I questioned these fellows at length that evening over uncounted tequilas at the local cantina. To the best of my recollection, they stuck to their story. And I couldn’t see any colors.
The following summer, we returned to Charcas and I continued mapping an area of about five-by-ten km (3x5 miles). The area was at 7,000 ft in the Eastern Sierras, and there was usually a brief rain late in the afternoon. I had still not been able to see any colors in the various limestone formations. One afternoon, after we had been mapping for a month, my field man and I took refuge in a cave in a hillside from a rain. After the rain, the sun came out and shone on the hills on the other side of an arroyo. The wet limestones on the other hillside were shining brightly in hues of yellow, purple, and pink!! I was astounded, and shouted to my field man to look at the colors. He was my friend, and told me patiently that we had never been able to see any colors, and that there were no colors now, either.
Well, as they say, go figure. I could see distinct colors, and he still couldn’t.
The staff at the Colorado School of Mines has utter and total confidence in the honor and capability of the graduate students and, to illustrate this in a practical way, they conducted rigorous field inspections during the progress of a mapping program. Besides, it gave three professors a chance to see a rare side of Mexico in the Sierra.
Dr.’s Robert Weimer, Trobe Grose, and Joe Finney came to Charcas and stayed with us in the mining unit for four days in August, 1969.
We went to the field with my maps, and they offered valuable suggestions. I told them the story recounted above and they accepted it about like my field man, because they couldn’t see any colors. I told them to test the proposition by secretly collecting and marking hand-specimens from the various formations as we traversed them, and that I would identify them that night after dinner.
After dinner, we cleared off the table, and they each put their samples on the table. To them it was a rubble of 40 or so pieces of light-gray limestone.
There wouldn’t be a story here if I hadn’t been able to correctly and easily identify each of the samples. They were impressed, thought that maybe I was rational after all, and that my maps were correct. We adjourned to the study of Jose Cuervo.
I’ve never had a more thrilling moment in years of geological work than that time in Charcas, except perhaps the deal with Luz Maria.
- James.H.Butler
If someone has had a similar experience or something in the same vein, I will greatly appreciate a note to me at James.H.Butler@sunshinecreek.us.com, and may all of your working days be pleasant.
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