Fossil fanatics

Joshua Trujillo / Staff
Tucsonan Matt Barrios, 13, would make a nice snack for a Tyrannosaurus rex. The bronze casting was made from fossilized bones.

Old bones flying out of tents as hobby gains followers

Moroccan fossil salesman Adnane Aziz has a bone to pick with Tucson.

Aziz has several thousand bones, actually - some dating back 250 million years - and they're for sale at the Congress Street Expo at Tucson Electric Park.

"Business keeps getting better every year," said Aziz, who has been coming to Tucson's Gem, Mineral & Fossil Showcase for six years. "Tucson must be very happy to have something like this."

Tucson is heaven for a fossil collector these days, with nearly every gem show containing some sort of fossil presence. Enthusiasts can shop for 50-cent fossil trinkets or $15,000 dinosaur bones.

The gem show has drawn fossil dealers from all corners of the world.

Aziz, whose family has made the annual voyage from Midelt, Morocco, to Tucson for more than 25 years, came to town a week ago with several large pieces worth more than $1,000, and he sold them all almost immediately. His tent is one of the more popular at the Expo.

Aziz said part of the reason for his increased success could be the entry of new buyers into the fossil market.

Count Tucson engineer Dillis Frazier among the ranks of the potential new fossil hounds.

Frazier, 60, has lived in the Old Pueblo for five years but never attended the gem show until Friday, when he decided to go to the Expo on his day off. A friend's recommendation sparked Frazier to head to Aziz's tent.

"I just find it interesting," Frazier said, sifting through a box of rocks embedded with bone and tooth fossils. "It's interesting to find stuff like this embedded in the rocks here."

Business is booming for Aziz, and he isn't even selling in the show's fossil hot spot. The Arizona Mineral & Fossil Show, with four locations around town, presents the most public fossil- buying opportunities.

The show, which runs through Saturday, offers 450 dealers specializing in mineral and fossil specimens, along with related items. Of the 450 dealers, 135 come from foreign countries.

Aziz doesn't stand alone in his recent success. An informal survey at the Ramada Inn University location found that several other fossil dealers have seen increased sales in the past few years.

Gary McWilliams, an Alaskan who sells furniture and sculptures embedded with fossils at the Mineral and Fossil Show, says he sees more and more buyers interested in his products.

McWilliams' colorful brachiopod fossils contained in limestone would make for a heck of a coffee-table conversation piece.

"First off, fossils are visually beautiful," McWilliams said. "Second, they prick the imagination and the intellect a little bit. People look at fossils and think about another time."

Aside from dealers, Tucson's fossil bounty attracts top academics like British paleotechnician Terry Manning.

"This is a very important event. It's very important to academics," said Manning, who conducts cutting-edge research for Manchester University, working with Dr. John Nedd.

"There is always new stuff, and it's fun to see what's going to pop up."

Manning, a 56-year-old Leicester, England, resident, is selling 40-million-year-old fish found in Wyoming and leaves from the ancient plant Glossopteris, which grew in the Southern Hemisphere 280 million years ago.

Manning, who has been coming to town for 20 years, has some fond memories of Tucson.

In 1996, Manning made headlines when he sold a $70,000 dinosaur egg.

The year before, Manning made a breakthrough in his ongoing research of dinosaur embryos when he recognized that emu eggs have a similar internal structure to dinosaur eggs.

"Tucson is remarkable in that dimension," Manning said. "It's a very important place, and people make major discoveries here."

* Contact Phil Villarreal at 573-4130 or prv@azstarnet.
com.

For visitors

Cruise up 'A' Mountain for spectacular city view

"A" Mountain

Cuesta Avenue, west of I-10

Don't fret if onyx hunting hasn't left you time to see anything in Tucson. You can see almost everything from "A" Mountain, the hill of volcanic rock that stands guard over Tucson.

The mountain, known to purists as Sentinel Peak, is mere minutes from Downtown. The trip is a mite longer for joggers and cyclists, who whip their legs into shape by chasing the hill's rising contours. From the summit - if an elevation of 2,897 feet can be called that - the city and surrounding countryside become an attractive panorama.

The whitewashed "A" first appeared in 1915, after the University of Arizona's football team narrowly defeated a Pomona College squad. Fans embarked on an evening of raucous celebration à la Zorro, painting oversized A's on every immobile object in sight. The hillside, however, resisted all attempts to engrave its face, so UA students and staffers raised $397 to install a permanent letter A there.

To reach "A" Mountain, take Congress Street west of Downtown to Cuesta Avenue. Turn left onto Cuesta and follow it past Cedar Street. and then up the mountain. The paved road splits into a one-way route and encircles the mountaintop. The drive is about 2 1/2 miles round-trip. Sentinel Peak Park and the road are open 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday.

Dragon View

400 N. Bonita Ave.

Tucson has its share of Chinese restaurants, but few can achieve the perfection that's standard fare at Dragon View. The restaurant, tucked into an industrial nook alongside Interstate 10, is usually packed with people craving its re-imagined classics and spicy seafood. The prawns are excellent and even hotter the next day: Don't leave without a carry-out box.

Dragon View, 792-3811. Monday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, noon to 10 p.m.; Sunday, noon to 9 p.m.

Hanna Miller

Gem show briefs

Bead show closing

Today is the last chance for bead fanatics to shop at the Whole Bead Show at the Windmill Inn, 4250 N. Campbell Ave.

The show, which features more than 100 bead makers, traders and merchants, opens at 10 a.m. and closes at 6 p.m.

Vintage and handmade glass beads, as well as silver, gold, crystal, stone, pearl, shell and wooden beads, are available.

"Rainforest Ivory"

No elephants were harmed in the making of this ivory.

The J & J Rosbury Marketing company is selling beads, sculptures and other fare made of "rainforest ivory," a substance called "tagua" that comes from the dried and polished seeds of Phytelephas macrocarpa, a palm that grows near the equator.

The booth is at the Intergem Tucson 2001 show, 700 W. Congress St.

Rosbury's products come from Ecuador.

The trees grow numerous large pods containing anywhere from 20 to 40 smaller pods, each of which contains tagua seeds. At maturity, the seeds are removed and dried. They become less porous and harder than ivory.

A single tree can produce more than 20 pounds of seeds, equivalent to the amount of ivory found on an average female elephant.

Huge petrified wood chunk

Anyone who is looking for a humongous hunk of petrified wood and who has $8,500 burning a whole in his pocket should stop by the Intergem Tucson 2001 show.

A 13,800-pound, 200-million-year-old hunk of petrified wood is set up outside the show's tent.

There have been no takers.

Phil Villarreal