The New York Times reports on the luck of two Swedish women who have combed the countryside around their little village, rock hammers and magnifiers in hand, for years. In 2007 they visited a newly logged bedrock exposure and found rock with visible gold. What would you do next? Well, first they called a government geologist to confirm the find, then they entered (and won) a national geological contest. Then they secured the mineral rights to the whole area, and the race was on.

Maybe I should buy fewer lottery tickets and spend more time out in the field.

The gold rushes
Gold nugget specimen
The world's richest placer ground
Do I have a fortune in my land?

I'm here to correct the record after my field trip to the Gold Country a few weeks ago. We spent a lot of time looking at and looking for the green mineral called mariposite. Some of us, including me, told everyone in the group that mariposite is the same thing as fuchsite, a chromian muscovite. But I was wrong: it's a chromian phengite instead. Learn more about it in the Gallery of Mica Minerals. By whatever name, it's attractive stuff. Indeed, green-and-white yard boulders all over California and I'm sure elsewhere are mariposite-bearing quartzite mined today where once upon a time, hardier men than me delved into the Mother Lode for gold.

Mariposite — Geology Guide photo

President Obama today announced his intention to name Marcia McNutt as the next head of the U.S. Geological Survey, the world's foremost Earth science agency (see the announcement at whitehouse.gov). This will be a nice change, as McNutt has actually served in the USGS unlike her two predecessors Charles Groat and Mike Myers. The 15th USGS chief in its 130-year history, McNutt will become the first woman to head the agency. In addition, she will become the Science Advisor to the Secretary of the Interior, a position never previously occupied by the USGS head, or indeed by a geologist (three previous advisors were biologists).

Washington will be a wrenching change from Moss Landing, California, where McNutt heads the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI). She is brilliant, tested, and well connected, and I wish her the best.

About the USGS
Geology welcomes women
Biographies of women geologists

If you get into geology, even as an amateur, you also need to learn about the outdoors. The wonderful mountains of Southern California are prone to landslide, fire and flash flooding, but they also harbor a dangerous plant with the innocuous name of poodle-dog bush. Learn more about Turricula parryi in the Hazardous Plants Gallery. Fortunately its range doesn't overlap that of the teddy-bear cactus. Thanks for this to my online friend Jon Carroll, whose daily column is sometimes useful as well as always entertaining.