A sunset at Higgins Lake.
This one should really be called Karen's Rockhounding episode. If you don't get into rocks and minerals, this one could really bore you. Press on if you want to see what I think are some cool rocks from Michigan. I rode up with a friend from the local rock club and this is starting over the Mackinac Bridge to the UP (Upper Penninsula).
That's Vickie with her trusty foldable wagon. We needed it to cart back the pretty rocks we found on the beach at the Point Iroquois Lighthouse.
Other club members have golf club-like scoops with sponges on the end so they can see what a rock would look like wet and pick it up without having to bend over all the time like I did. They are a very knowledgeable group of folks and could identify almost any rock I plucked up.
Vickie and I carried on to Whitefish Point Lighthouse to look for more rocks. The biting flies and mosquitos came out as if a switch had been flipped about 3p.m. and drove us off the beach.
The stony beach at Whitefish Point. We had to avoid the Piping Plover nesting areas.
We stopped at a smoked fish shop she knew on the way home. This Sasquatch cutout was in the side yard of the shop.
I think the one in the middle looks like a hippy dude with a backpack on.
This was an opening slide for a presentation that I found fascinating. The rock club hosted the MSU professor for a repeat presentation that drew over 100 people to listen. Professors and students at Michigan State University have determined that a persistent lake in this area remained as the glaciers came and went around it 23-27,000 years ago--something that has never happened anywhere else in the world! "Like a hole in a doughnut" is how they describe it. It's named Glacial Lake Roscommon as the initial discovery was from a delta they discovered here at Higgins Lake just down the shore a bit from us. We are in Roscommon county, so they named the new phenomenon after our county. They claim they are rewriting glacial/geological history for this area. I'm into it.
An interesting scene on a rock from Lake Superior. Like a smoky winter night scene or something.
The Lindberg Quarry up near Ishpeming, MI where we went to gather Kona Dolomite, a pretty rock that is found only in this one place in the world, the Kona Hills in Marquette County. The quarry view from afar. The area in the center had just been dynamited so we had to hunt for rock on the far right. The owners threatened to cancel the open quarry because of the unstable rock, but the rock club convinced them not to.
Our rock club and others had members searching for the prettiest chunks of the rock for up to three hours. If you could lift it and load it with 1 or 2 people, you could take it with you. The quarry only allows the public in once a year, so this date was sacred.
Part of my haul. Jason helped with some collection, too.
Jason and I spent the next day driving around the UP, seeing sights, and looking for more rocks. This is looking off a cliff into Lake Superior, getting close to Pictured Rocks National Seashore.
There are rock climbers on that rock in the picture. It was a gorgeous, warm, calm day on the lake. A rarity and we enjoyed it.
Jason checking out the woodpecker holes in a tree along a path. Looks like it might be from a pileated woodpecker as they carve out large cavities that are sort of rounded rectangles.
These Pileated woodpeckers are on the white pine in front of our cottage. Many folks believe they were the model for Woody Woodpecker. They are the largest woodpecker left alive.
A mushroom in its final days along a trail. The gills now look like fringe and the hole through it makes it look like something was gnawing on it. Just different.
Overlooking a small stony beach cove along Lake Superior.
Someone has stacked the Jacobsville Sandstone rocks along the beach here. The sand is so pink from the rocks wearing down.
We watched this freighter come in from Lake Superior into the loading pier here in Marquette. The channel along the dock is only as wide as the ship and his nose ended up almost on shore. You can see the very shallow spot between me and the ship. I couldn't imagine trying to get this ship in here if there was any wind or waves. Each of those 'ribs' on the pier is a loading chute that lowers to feed taconite pellets into the holds of the ship.
Taconite pellets that were just lying around the rail tracks. Iron ore is mixed with bentonite clay to form these pellets, which are easier to ship and easier to smelt to make industrial iron.
An outcrop of bedrock Jacobsville sandstone further up the coast. It is a very distinguishable pink and tan/white, often with interesting designs. It wears to smooth stones easily and can be really quite pretty.
Funky designs in the sandstone here.
Quite a variety of design and color mix here. Jason found one that was layered and looked like a stone hamburger bun.
A selfie on a hiking trail in the UP.
The Kona dolomite gathering was too far to make it a day trip, so we spent two nights at this farm, an Airbnb home, where the owner grew veges and mushrooms for sale.
A classic barn on the property, possibly for the chickens. All the eggs we ate had two yolks in them! We were gone rock hunting most of the time and didn't really have time to get to know the host and the farm.
A waterfall along the road as we headed home. We found Kona dolomite across the highway in the water spillway, dumped there to slow the flow of the water.
Another view of Wagner Falls.
Lake Superior stony beach. Great for looking for agates or other pretty rocks near Grand Marais.
Looking the other way down the beach.
Our lunch stop in Grand Marais. There wasn't much of a choice, but the whitefish here was quite good, if a little pricey for us.
Probably the biggest and one of my favorite chunks of Kona dolomite. The red blobs are dolomite crystals, known as 'moose blood' and that color is found only in the rock from the Kona hills near Marquette, MI.
Much of it has pink tiger stripes in it, but there is quite a variety in the colors and designs in the rock.
Jason's hamburger rock and other chunks waiting to be polished.
This big one will be slabbed, cut with a saw. A pretty piece that would make good jewelry if I had the time and skills and tools.
Some of the blue slag glass that I pulled out of Lake Superior near Marquette. Local sand and rocks were added to the iron smelters of the 1870's to help draw out the impurities of the iron ore. The impure stuff raised to the top and was piped out into the lake, where it hardened into this slag glass. It still has the bubbles and bits of iron in it to make the rock rust. It's been tumbled in Lake Superior for 140 years, so it's pretty tough stuff. But it's difficult to polish back to a shiny luster. I didn't know what it was when I was collecting it, but if I go back again, I'll get more that might end up as jewelry, too.
Petosky stones, favosites, Charlevoix stones, along with fossils are common finds along the beaches in northern Michigan. The Petosky stone (like the lower center one) is the state rock. They look so different when they get polished, but they are actually fossilized coral.
A pink striped piece of Kona dolomite. The dark layers were once microorganisms that are thought to be the origins of the oxygen in our atmosphere. They were stromatolite (blue-green algae) that took in toxic gases and expelled oxygen, starting our atmosphere. Without them, we'd never have developed. Say 'thank you, Kona dolomite'.
My haul of Kona dolomite along the garage. All my rock finds end up here and I use the sides of the garage as my 'work in progress' holding place. My rock garden, so to speak. At least it grows without the deer decimating it.
Higgins Lake sunset
We actually saw a bit of 'beach' along our shoreline for the first time in ages. The long dry spell of warm weather let the water level get down to a level that let us see the sand. Some folks complained as it made it hard to get boats on/off hoists and into the deeper water to use, but I thought it was wonderful.
Mallard duck butts. There is something in front of our cottage that draws them to feed here often. Weeds, snails, clams, I'm not sure, but I see lots of duck tails these days.
No comments:
Post a Comment