Any good collecting areas in Michigan?

sterling state park should provide lots of beach stone, beyond that i don't know. i'll likely be over at sterling on friday if the weather is good, but fishing not rockhounding.

cheers
jerry

Geez I was just reading about MI collecting- Seems there is Amythyst up around Lake Superior, and of course the chance at Lake Superior Agates, and then there are a lot of copper minerals, also Jaspers- but that is all UP way as for the OH border area I think you have a good chance of Flint/chert-

heading to copper harbor is the way to go.
on your way you can check out the following that i know of:

higgins lake state park has lots of petosky stones on the various paths around the park, ask the rangers they will help you out.

right after you cross the bridge (mackinaw) on the left there is a rock outcrop where hw 2 connects to I-75 that is a "famous" mineral outcropping in michigan, i'll look up the name for you and a general description if your inclined.

the lake superior shoreline from whitefish point west has potentail for lake sup agates. you should visit the shipwreck museum at whitefish point and see the sights then go rock hound the beach for a while. there is a fresnel lens in the museum that is amazing, it came from an old lighthouse and is truly spectacular.

there are many mine tailings and rock shops in the areas along the lakeshore west of whitefish point to copper harbor, also mine tours are availible.

have fun
jerry

hw 2 & I 75, well when you hand your $2 to the toll booth operator coming off the bridge look to your left. see that big outcrop where the road comes into the other side?

that's it.

cheers
jerry

Hi Mershira, I'm from Owosso.

The mouth of the Deerlick Creek south of South Haven has Septarian Nodules and some nice fossil concretions. Check out my post in the Rock ID Library to see some of the rocks I found there.

I found some nice Petoskey Stones at the municipal beach in Leeland. There you can also find "Leeland Bluestone" which is actually a manmade slag that was a byproduct of the foundry that built the Leeland Dam. It's found in all shades of blue as well as green and black.

This August 6 - 12 I'll be attending the Copper Country Mineral Retreat in the Keweenaw Peninsula. They are bulldozing mine dumps to expose fresh material. You can find all kinds of minerals there including native copper, native silver, chlorastrolite (the state gem), just to name a few. Here's the link to their website.
www.museum.mtu.edu/copper_country_mineral/index.html

Happy hunting,
Jim

Clarence,
I noticed you made the trip to Hogg mine and JXR - what did you think? I am hoping to head down in about 6 weeks. Just curious what you thought and if you had any suggestions. Hoping to take my 9 year old son with me.
Thanks,
Jim

i'll post some pics of the finds in the morning. i don't have a saw so i'm not sure when any might get cut. it was a nice day to get out which was most of the reason that i went.

cheers
jerry

Hey, Mershira;
An outcrop is nothing more than a place where bedrock is exposed. It can be human-made such as a road cut, or non-human made such as a ledge or a place where erosion has exposed the bedrock.
Happy hunting!