Australian boulder opals and Chlorastrolite

The Australian boulder opal with its fire like flashes has come to be a stone of much wealth, sometimes reaching the price way above diamonds. Here is one of those gem stones. This black opal from Australia. The gem was cut by my brother Kirk Meinke. When you reach into the red colors of these opals and large carat sizes like this one you can get into the millions of dollars, for these gems. The very small circles in the opals is what gives them the fire like colors. Although we have not found them in Michigan at the present time who is to say some day that we don't find them. Unlike opals with small circles to reflect light the Michigan Greenstone(Chlorastrolite) has very small lines to reflect light, giving it the high opalescence look. The 1/4 inch stars with in the the gems are rarer than the rest so when you see large stars they are worth more. Most of the best Chlorastrolite gems come from the Delaware mine in the copper country of Michigan. They are very hard to find so if you go gem hunting in the copper country for them, don't give up that easily. It always seems better to find any gem after it rains out. The colors of gems usually always stand out. Here are some pictures of some fine gems from Michigan and over seas.

Chlorastrolite on Ebay at Gems of Michigan

Gems of Michigan have an eBay store now called thunder gems. I have made up a simple catalog for this Michigan made jewelry. I hope this will help for the people who have shown great interest in Michigan greens tones (Chlorastrolite). Our most reasonable priced jewelry is the Turtle Web pendants they start at 60 dollars and go up to 150 dollars. They are reasonable priced for sterling silver pendants with one to 4 carat Chlorastrolite gems in them. I cut and polish all the gems by hand I even mines them in the summer time up in the copper country at the Delaware mine. This is probable the most handmade jewelry in Michigan. If I could mine the silver from Michigan I would use that silver in this jewelry, maybe in time.

12x10mm Chlorastrolite gem in Sterling silver Turtle Web pendant for $150

10mm Chlorastrolite gem in Sterling silver Turtle web pendant for $100

8mm Chlorastrolite gem in Sterling silver Turtle web pendant for $80

8x6mm Chlorastrolite gem in Sterling silver Turtle Web pendant for $60

Here are other wonderful Chlorastolite pieces that can be found at our Ebay Store.

I like to incorporate Datolite gems with my greenstone pictures for it also is a gem stone that is from Michigan copper country. The Michigan shaped jewelry is all hand casted then worked down by hand to a high polish. Trust me when I say it is very hard work for this line of jewelry. At present time the large rings are all size 14 but can be made to a smaller size. The very small Michigan ring is made to size and is only 50 dollar. The more exotic rings start 200 dollars and go up to 300 dollars, these rings have heaver silver and are more handmade (some have a gold bezel). The large pendants are 150 dollars. From time to time I will come up with new Jewelry, which I will post or but on my thunder gem eBay store front. I hope you are enjoying my posts yours truly Tim Meinke.

http://stores.ebay.com/Gems-of-Michigan

Michigan Emeralds and Large Garnets

There are emeralds in Michigan. Even though the colors of these emeralds are usually light they can still come in dark green to dark blue green. Theses emeralds are found in an old iron mine in Marquette County. If there was a myth of finding theses gems in Michigan, it is no longer a myth. They are very hard to find in the old iron mines I would have to believe that there could be out crops of these emeralds if one could find a better pegmatite system in this area. These pegmatites are there but most of them are covered with glacier sands. For the people who are looking for these gems it will be a hard and long journey but that half the fun. From Marquette County all the way south to Dickerson County is a good place to start looking for theses' elusive emeralds. Who knows maybe you will get extremely lucky and find rubies, if you are finding emeralds you are findings chrome deposits and where there is chrome there can be rubies.


For those looking for easier gems you can always look for garnets they are scattered all over many of the old iron mines. The only problem is that there is very little gem quality but you will find some o.k. cap quality. Put it this way, it will take a nice polish, if you know what I mean. Most of these garnets are really pseudomorphs. (They are usually lager in size and replaced by hematite). On very rear occasions the pseudomorphs can be as large as soft balls. These garnets and pseudomorphs are found in chloride schist. When busting them out always hit the schist with a hammer against the grain, so the gems don't break in half. Believe me they look a lot better when there whole.

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.