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Miners Gems was established in 1978 in Old Town Historic
State Park, San Diego, CA by Eleanor Richards and Family. This special location,
the first settlement of California was a fitting location for a gold rush rock
shop.
Old Town San Diego
is the Birthplace of California. It was discovered by Juan Cabrillo
when he came across San Diego Bay in 1542. It was feast day of Saint
Michael the Archangel and Cabrillo named the port San Miguel in his
honor. It wasn't until 60 years when the port was visited again by
the Spanish explorer Vizcano in 1602. A section from his personal
Journal "...we arrived at the port which must be the best to
be found in all South Seas. On the 12th of said month, which was
the day of the glorious San Diego, the general, admiral, religious,
captains, ensigns, and almost all men went ashore."
"A hut was
built and mass was said in celebration of the feast of Senor San
Diego. This port was given the name of San Diego." Vizcaino
disregarded his orders and changed the name of the port from San
Miguel to San Diego claiming Cabrillo's calculations of latitude
were incorrect and he couldn't find San Miguel.
Our store is located
in the home of Don Miguel de Pedrorena. It was built in 1869 and
is the last adobe built in Old Town. He gave this house to his sister
Isabel de Altamirano in 1871. It was he who buried beneath this house,
or in the patio at the rear, the famous old Spanish gun "El
Jupiter", now mounted at Fort Stockton.
Don Miguel was a
prominent merchant in Mexican California. He represted the San Diego
Area at the California State Constitutional Convention in 1835 though
he didn't live in the San Diego until 1849 to explore mining possibilities
in the area. He also rose stock on both sides of the border. He belonged
to one of the best families of Madrid and was educated in that city
and at Oxford, England. Though of high birth, he was exceedingly
affable, polite, gracious in manner and bearing. His wife was Maria
Antonia Estudillo. He strongly favored the American side of the war
of 1845, and had a cavalry command with the rank of Captain. Early
in 1850 he took part with William Heath Davis and others in founding
of New San Diego in Punta de los Muortos (Foot of Market Street).
When he died he was one of the first to be buried in the Catholic
Cemetery, being accorded full military honors.
During the
1800's this area was a beautiful
Natural Harbor, a hidden paradise for the Spanish and latter Mexican
settlers. It was a distant back water, territory of Mexico until
gold was discovered in 1848 by John Marshall at Sutters Mill, northern
California. Within an instant of the cry Eureka! Gold!, this vast
unpopulated territory of Mexico became deluge by gold seekers from
all parts of the world. The region was forever changed.
San Diego would
not be left out of the gold rush though. In 1850 the second largest
city in San Diego was the hamlet Julian. It is nestled in the Laguna
mountains, running south from Warner Springs across the border into
Mexico. It wasn't until 1869 when the cry of Gold was heard in the
Julian Area. Two men found traces of placer gold in a mountain stream.
A year had passed before the young boy, Billy Gorman, found some
quartz flecked with gold. The Gormans staked their claim and "The
Washington" mine was christened. Spectacular quartz specimens
were put on display in store windows which was the only advertisement
needed to spark the gold rush.
The boom was short
lived and died out in 1880. $15 million worth of gold ore had been
taken from the mines and the more profitable gold from northern California
was more desirable and Julian soon was a small town again.
But that isn't the
end of the mineral story of San Diego. After the gold rush some magnificent
crystals were sent to New York gem company for identification and
evaluation. An agent arrived to investigate the source of these'
gems'. The 'gems' turned out to be tourmaline and of excellent cutting
quality which started the gem stone mining and lapidary industry
of Southern California.
At the turn of the
century, there were as many gem cutters as there were ranchers in
the area. Southern California was soon producing tourmaline, large
quartz crystals, kunzinte, garnets, beryl and opal nodules.
Mesa Grande has produced
the best tourmaline mines in Southern California and we have several
specimens in our store.
Dinosaurs from San
Diego
Not many dinosaur
fossils have been discovered in San Diego; aonly a few hadrosaur
(duck-billed dinosaurs) bones consisting of ; part of a lower jaw,
a fragment of vertebra, several tail vertebrae and a femur. But San
Diego can boast having the only scientifically named dinosaur in
all of California: Aletopelta coombsi. Miner's Gem's and Minerals
played a small part in this.
In the spring of
1987 the Knoll Construction Company was involved in a joint project
to extend College Boulevard from Camino Real to Palomar Airport Road
along the northwest side of the Palomar-McClellan Airport. The San
Diego Natural History Museum's Brad Riney, who was also working for
a local Paleontological consulting company PaleoServices was monitoring
the construction. When a sewer trench was being dug he noticed a
grey marine layer that was about 3 feet above the pipe. He also noticed
some bones. The bones stretched along a 12 foot line indicating a
good possibility for more bones. Because the layer was above the
pipe, the construction company was able to lay the pipe and helpedc
in excavating the specimen. A good portion of the skeleton was found;
teeth, limb bones, some vertebrae, articulated hip and legs, and
several different pieces of armor. Even though the dinosaur was found
in a marine environment, this does not mean it lived in the ocen,
just that it floated out to sea and sank. Ohter animals found on
or in the general area are; oysters, clams, rock scallops, snals,
ammonites, nautiloids, crabs, fish and shart teeth. It come from
the Point Loma Formation, Campanian Stage, Late Cretaceous (about
70 million years ago).
Brad had found the
first armored dinosaur west of the Rocky Mountains. The dinosaur
was originally believed to be a nodosaurid (a group of armored dinosaurs
in the order Ankylosauria) by Tom Demere and it was later described
by Tom Demere (head Paleontologist at the San Dieo Natural History
Museum) and Walter P. Coombs (a noted dinosaur paleontologist who
studied ankylosaurs). They were under the belief that it showed more
similarities to nodosaurs and that was how it stayed until Jim Kirkland
(then working in Colorado and now head paleontologist of Utah) and
I (Tracy L. Ford) got involved.
Jim kept telling
me I needed to prepare the specimen more than it already was (and
still more needs to be prepared). He also said that I needed to travel
all over the United States and Canada to study other ankylosaur material.
At the time I couldn't due to my emplopyment situation, but luckily
that changed and I was able to work on it. Tom Demere was gracious
enough to let me prepare the specimen and take pieces home with me
to work on. I asked the owners of Miner's Gem's if they'd let me
work behing the store and they were very happy to let me do that.
I prepared and studied the fossils for about a year before Jim Kirkland
and I redescribed the specimen. We both independently came to the
conclusion that it wasn't a nodosaurid but an ankylosaurid which
drastically changed not only the shape of the head but also the type
of armor. We wanted a name that had meaning and after confirming
with a friend who works on etymology, we came up with Aletopelta
coombsi.
Alet in Greek means
wandering. This is in reference to two things; one is that the animal
died on land, it's carcass filled wiht gasses and floated out to
sea where it sank and became an artificial 'reef', so it wandered
in that sense and two, the position of Carlsbad during the time of
Aletopelta. Everything west of the San Andreas fault was further
south during the time of Aletopelta. Carlsbad was somewhere off the
coast or laying next to the southern Mexico (which makes this the
furthest south North American ankylosaur that has been found), thus
Carlsbad wandered to its present position. The excat location of
the Cretaceous southern California is in debate but we know it wasn't
where it is today. The second name is in honor of Walter P. Cooms
for his research and inspiration to those of us who study armored
dinosaurs.
The area in which
the specimen was found was mainly devoid of any reef system: i. e.
the sea floor was farily barren. But Aletopelta sand to the ocean
floor and became a secondary reef system similar to the way the Nave
sinks ships to become reef systems for fish and divers to swim in.
The invertebrate fossils indicate a more tropical climate. The earth
has 'zone's' of climate and these don't shift much. It is true the
climate of the Earth during the Mesozoic was warmer but a more tropical
climate still would have been around the equator. This is another
indicator that Carlsbad was further south during the Late Cretaceous.
Aletopelta coombsi was
a small armored dinosaur, about 15 feet long, ate plants and was
covered in armor. It possibly ate along river and stream shores.
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