Post by Jugglerguy on Aug 17, 2015 21:54:16 GMT -5
Last week my daughter Allison and I went to Michigan's Keweenaw Peninsula to visit my sister and to hunt for rocks. We started out by visiting another one of my sisters and my mom in Marquette. After leaving Marquette, we stopped at a tailings pile from an old mine in Champion. The pile is mostly specular hematite. Parts of the road sparkle from the dust.
I picked up a few rocks here that I'll offer for sale within the next couple of days. It's really sparkly.
The next stop was Canyon Falls for a hike along the river. It's one of the most beautiful spots in the state in my opinion.
I'm 6' 2" tall. I have a rule about high cliffs. I always stay back approximately six feet so if I trip, I don't go over the edge. It's a good rule.
The next morning we went to the mouth of the Gratiot River and hunted the beach there.
We found a couple small agates here. We also came back later in the week and found what I think is prehnite. I'm not sure that's what it all is, but it's my best guess.
I don't know what this rock is, but I found it on this beach and I like it.
Later that day, I drove to another beach by myself. I drove 45 minutes past civilization by Jeep. I only saw one other person (on a motorcycle) in my 45 minute drive there and my several hours on the beach. It's sort of nice to be alone, but I was really careful not to twist an ankle climbing over rocks. Here's the quad trail I walked to the beach on.
Did I mention that it's beautiful here?
I picked up a bunch of this stuff on the beach. I'm not sure what it is, but it polishes really well. I was told three different people who I feel are knowledgable three different things. I was told banded chert, jasper, and banded rhyolite. I don't really think it's chert though. Here's a wet/dry picture.
At about 6:00 in the evening I started hunting this section of the beach for the second time. I've read that if you walk towards the sun when it's low in the sky, the agates will glow. Six o'clock isn't that late since it doesn't get dark until after ten this time of year, but I tried it anyway. The dry rocks were tiny on the majority of this beach, but larger in the water. I was hunting the dry. I couldn't believe how well this method worked. The rocks glowed like little Christmas lights on the beach. I was fooled a couple times by the sun reflecting off of chert, but the agates actually glowed.
I tried to get a picture of one before picking it up and I was pleased with the results. This picture was not altered in any way, the agates actually looked like this on the beach.
The agates were tiny, but I got about twenty of them in a half hour. It was perhaps the most fun rock hunting I've ever done. These are my tiny lakers from the trip, most of which were found here.
This page has frozen up on my twice, so I'm posting this in two parts before I lose it again.
I picked up a few rocks here that I'll offer for sale within the next couple of days. It's really sparkly.
The next stop was Canyon Falls for a hike along the river. It's one of the most beautiful spots in the state in my opinion.
I'm 6' 2" tall. I have a rule about high cliffs. I always stay back approximately six feet so if I trip, I don't go over the edge. It's a good rule.
The next morning we went to the mouth of the Gratiot River and hunted the beach there.
We found a couple small agates here. We also came back later in the week and found what I think is prehnite. I'm not sure that's what it all is, but it's my best guess.
I don't know what this rock is, but I found it on this beach and I like it.
Later that day, I drove to another beach by myself. I drove 45 minutes past civilization by Jeep. I only saw one other person (on a motorcycle) in my 45 minute drive there and my several hours on the beach. It's sort of nice to be alone, but I was really careful not to twist an ankle climbing over rocks. Here's the quad trail I walked to the beach on.
Did I mention that it's beautiful here?
I picked up a bunch of this stuff on the beach. I'm not sure what it is, but it polishes really well. I was told three different people who I feel are knowledgable three different things. I was told banded chert, jasper, and banded rhyolite. I don't really think it's chert though. Here's a wet/dry picture.
At about 6:00 in the evening I started hunting this section of the beach for the second time. I've read that if you walk towards the sun when it's low in the sky, the agates will glow. Six o'clock isn't that late since it doesn't get dark until after ten this time of year, but I tried it anyway. The dry rocks were tiny on the majority of this beach, but larger in the water. I was hunting the dry. I couldn't believe how well this method worked. The rocks glowed like little Christmas lights on the beach. I was fooled a couple times by the sun reflecting off of chert, but the agates actually glowed.
I tried to get a picture of one before picking it up and I was pleased with the results. This picture was not altered in any way, the agates actually looked like this on the beach.
The agates were tiny, but I got about twenty of them in a half hour. It was perhaps the most fun rock hunting I've ever done. These are my tiny lakers from the trip, most of which were found here.
This page has frozen up on my twice, so I'm posting this in two parts before I lose it again.