Datolite and other Michigan Gems of October

It was the last week of October. I decided to go up north to the copper country. Once again I marked out a spot on the map to go looking for more crystals and stopped at some old iron mines in Marquette County. In my amazement I found the nicest gold goethite crystals growing on a cluster of half inch clear smoky quartz crystals. I didn't think that such finds were capable of being found up in theses ranges. "Holly Smithsonian", I said. This is one of the most beautiful groups of crystals I've seen from these ranges.

On this day in the iron ranges there was about 3 to 6 inches of melting snow. It was a beautiful day, a mixture of fall colors, and the deer still in rut (I saw a six point buck chasing a doe in the middle of the day.) For these conditions it was a wonderful even though the temperature was around 35 degrees outside.

I found this gem of a mineral specimen on the side of a 5 foot boulder with a plate of half inch smoky quartz crystals. The plate was about 2 foot by 2 foot and if you know anything about popping a large plate of crystals off a 5 foot granite boulder it is virtually impossible, so I was able to knock off a couple of pieces and one of those pieces was a trophy. With any luck I would be able to save this specimen to take picture for people to see what’s in these old iron mines.

At night I arrived at the Delaware mine for some rest, in the morning I would set out to take some pictures and try to find some datolite. There was not as much snow on the ground as there was in the iron mines but I still had to wait for some snow to melt to dig in my datolite holes. So I looked for greenstones and found some very large ones.

Finally the snow melted in the crushed basalt holes and I found some datolite but not your ordinary colors. One looked like cotton candy and I found my first yellow datolite from the Delaware mine (after 30 years of searching) I thought I would never find this color there.

After searching the Delaware mine I went to the Connecticut mine (this is next to the Delaware mine) where I found some white datolite next to a small boulder. I broke up the small boulder and found some more pieces and some were about 2 inches across in size. After finding some more small balls of very small datolite and the Connecticut is full of very small datolite balls, I took some more pictures of the mines with their snow and fall colors.

Chlorastrolite and Large Michigan Greenstones

Michigan Greenstones or Chlorastrolite can be found in the old Delaware mine and sometime very large Chlorastrolites and these are extremely rare. Three to five hundred carat stones have been found there, considering the average size is about 1 carat for most Greenstones or Chlorastrolite that are found in this area around the Keweenaw Peninsula.

Personally, I have only found a handful of these beautiful gems stones of this larger size. The reason why is most of them have ended up broken up due to the process of breaking the basalt rock that carries the greenstone in this matrix.

The larger gem quality stones are the most beautiful of all the stones and if you are lucky enough to find copper inclusions in these Greenstones they are worth five times or more per carat weight. Greenstones are priced between 50 to 200 dollars a carat, so a Greenstone or Chlorastrolite with these inclusions can be worth up to 1000 dollars a carat.

When looking for larger greenstones all you have to really do is find the small one. The reason being that with the small greenstones on that rare occasion is really very large greenstones in the matrix once you open it. You will have to go through thousands of rocks of basalts to find even the small stones. If for some reason you find some Greenstone and break them out of the rock and if you would like, I can polish them for a very reasonable price. I also will give you the stone that you found. I have been cutting greenstones for 10 years and black opals for 20 years. Black opals gave me the experience to cut chlorastrolte because they are very similar.

If you find a large greenstone send it out to be cut up, because this is the only way to really see the beauty of this stone is once it is polished up. Good luck hunting the large greenstones that the Delaware mine can and will give up. Rock hunting is one of the last God given rights that we still have in are lives, so be safe and courteous.

Hunting Greenstones in Michigan

The hunting of dark violet and very dark green greenstones of Michigan! It was first very cold week in November 2005 when I set out with my younger brother. I was going to show him a bit on how to find greenstones on this gem stone hunting adventure. Just imagine there was a foot of snow in the Seney wildlife refuge when we arrived in Lanse Michigan.

Now, as you might guess, by this time I was thinking I had made a bad choice in driving up north to Michigan’s copper county to look for these gems. The temperatures were in the low 20's this morning as we drove in to the Delaware mines, which were almost completely covered in snow by now. My younger brother and I had driven much too far and too long for us not to even look around for a bit. There were 40 to 50 mile an hour winds howling by us, but that wasn’t going to stop us from having a good time.

Its 10 o’clock am and the temperature outside had only risen to a bone chilling 30 degree F. You wouldn't believe it but our luck had finally changed and by noon the sun came out and the snow was starting to melt. I was giving my brother hints on how to find these gems, and as brothers go he wasn’t having it or paying any attentions to me. Then to my amazement suddenly he ends up finding some of the biggest greenstones I have ever seen, beginners luck. Good thing he was not listening to me.

The cool thing is that every time the melting snow drips away from the basalt matrix, there they are, “jackpot” we’d both are discovering more and more of these beautiful Michigan greenstones. After four hours of people hunting grouse with 12 gauge shotguns in the area being fired and near misses in our direction, the gusty winds of 40 miles an hour mixed in with damp bone chilling temperatures, we managed to find some really really nice gems on this wonderful trip. What a bonanza and another adventure of a life time.