Trip reports
For Lyle Laylin - 2007
Memorial
Day trip.
This was my second trip to the Rockport quarry and I was able to spend almost 2 days learning my way around the quarry. I found two different spots where instead of limestone the base was clay which made collecting horn coral and brachiopods much easier. I also found a number of hexagonaria (Petoskey Stone) heads in sizes from one to 8 inches. My best find was a large plate which has a Petoskey Stone, many bryozoans, many crinoid columnals and best of all a trilobite. I hope to have the plate cleaned in time for our October show.
In doing research after my trip I found that in addition to the Rockport quarry the State of Michigan also owns the Bell Shale pit which is just north of the quarry. I am planning to make another trip (perhaps next spring) and see what there is in the shale pit. I would like to suggest that this might be a good location for a regular club trip, yearly? Or maybe bi--yearly.
Fourth of
July trip report.
Having
participated in the Seaman Museum Red Metal Retreat for the last two
years, I
decided that this year, I would try going to the mine dumps on my own. Mostly, because when they
turn the dumps for
the retreat, it leaves everything so dirty it's very difficult to see
any of
the mineralization in the rock. As
a
result you do most of your hunting with a metal detector and I have
enough copper (For now :).
During
the week that I was in the Keweenaw I managed to explore about 11
different dumps;
Wolverine, Ahmeek, Seneca, Cliff,
Phoenix, Central, Clark, Kearsarge, Ojibway, Iroquois and
West
Vein. Though some
of the visits were
quite short.
I left
Lansing on Saturday, June 30 and (through dawdling) managed to arrive
in
Houghton at 8 p.m. that evening, I ate dinner, and managed to find a
campsite
for the night. The
next morning I went
straight to McLain State Park and arranged for a campsite for the week. Since I couldn't get into
my campsite until
1 p.m., I drove over to the Wolverine mine and spent the morning
working that
dump.
I didn't
spend as much time at the Wolverine as I would have if I had known it
was
slated to be crushed this year, but I did find one chunk with several
small
agates. As well as a number of large Adularia nodules with quartz and
or
calcite. I spent
the rest of the day
setting up camp, getting settled in and studying maps in preparation
for the
week.
Sunday morning I started out with the West Vein mine dump, a site which I had previously missed going to during the Red Metal Retreats due to changed directions. When I arrived it was obvious that material was currently being removed from this dump so I had high hopes of getting into some fresh rock. I quickly found a few pieces of rock with greenstones in them and noticed that they appeared to be all the same matrix so I started scouring the area for that matrix and rapidly had about a half bucket full (as it turned out later these pieces had almost nothing but chlorite in them). The rest of the day I decided to take a try at some agates on the beach so I went to the mouth of the Gratiot River, but didn't have any luck.
Monday morning started off very rainy so I went into Hancock to do another thing I hadn't managed to get to during the retreats. Taking the Quincy Mine Hoist tour. In all I spent more than two hours at the Quincy mine, between the underground tour, the building tour and the exhibits at the museum. All were excellent, and it was very encouraging to see the progress on the mine buildings where the Seaman Museum is going to be moving.
Tuesday I
started out to see if I could find any of the mines on the west side of
the
peninsula, in particular I was looking for the Copper falls mine, not
knowing
that it was private property so I took the road back over the hill to
Central
and spent the rest of the morning there (very profitably, lots of
greenstone)
while I was there I spoke to a family who was up from Bloomington
Indiana and
were members of that club. In
the afternoon
I made stops at the South Cliff (I'm not sure I found the correct spot,
there
was only a small amount of material, not really a dump worth) and the
Iroquois. I wasn't
finding much at the
Iroquois so I didn't stay long.
Wednesday, the weather seemed like it was threatening rain so I decided to head towards Copper Harbor and see if the weather changed on the way, this turned out to be a good decision as the weather cleared shortly before I arrived at Copper Harbor. I spent the next couple hours trying to get out to the tip of the Keweenaw, but the road proved to be too rugged for my truck (or my nerve :). On the way back I stopped at the east end of Copper Harbor, in a small waterfront park, there I found a number of rocks with small agates to make my trip worth the effort. Leaving Copper Harbor. I stopped at the Clark mine. The dump at the Clark is quite small and seemed to me to be the least mineralized rock I had seen out of any of the mines. On the way back from Copper Harbor I decided to stop at the Ojibway, unfortunately as I arrived the weather started to close back in and after about half an hour exploring the pile I had to scoot because a front was coming through.
Thursday
I started at the Cliff and once again hit a good spot and picked up a
number of
chunks with greenstone, after the Cliff I had no particular plans and
so
started back towards the campground.
On the way I noticed the sign for the Seneca location so I
stopped for a
look, but I didn't find much.
Continuing on I next stopped at the Ahmeek where I picked
up a couple of
big lumps of Laumontite. From
the
Ahmeek I could see a couple of large piles which turned out to be some
of the
Kearsarge piles, I checked them out but didn't find anything
immediately
interesting and I was getting kind of tired so I called it a day.
Friday I
was going to have to leave my campsite by 1 p.m. so I went to the
Phoenix mine
where I had had my best greenstone hunting during previous trips. I picked up some
greenstone here but not as
much as I'd hoped. As
I finished I
realized I'd not found a single Datolite the whole trip. Next time I'm going to
find someone who's
good at finding Datolite and'll let me tag along.
I went back to the campground, picked up my trailer, and
scooted
through Calumet taking pictures on the way.
I started home by way of Lake Ellen.
Saturday
morning I hunted around and found the Lake Ellen kimberlite prospect. I looked around the pit
and was able to see
small pieces of Garnet in the walls but nothing like the larger ones
that I had
been led to expect, as I was getting antsy to be on my way I loosened
some
material from the side of the hole and took a bucket full with me to
inspect
later. (No results
as yet)
In all, I had a very successful trip and found lots of greenstones to chip out of the matrix over the winter. Plus a fair amount of material for the children's table.
Labor Day Trip
September First
The only place I was able to visit on this trip was Scott Quarry near Trout Lake in the U.P.A very interesting spot. When I hear "quarry" I think of a hole in the ground but Scott is a bite out of the side of a quite large hill. The floor of the quarry is flat rock with a high wall around three fifiths of a circle, the wall is as much as eighty feet high.
The main thing that interested me in this quarry was the descriptions mentioning "silicafied coral" I wanted to see what that might be.
After a bit of searching I started to find drusy pieces, coral pieces, chert-flint, and finally Silicafied Coral! The material is a tabular coral, replaced or filled by translucent silica varying from colorless to a very nice light blue that shows nice pattern in all directions and takes a nice polish. In addition some of the chert shows very nice pattern though it is a bit drab.