Category: Customer Agate Finds

Summer is here so there have been a lot of customer agate finds. This first photo was sent to me from Jennifer Jackman. She and her husband love to agate hunt. You can see photos of their adventures at www.lakesuperiorrocks.net. Pictured below is a nice agate they found earlier this summer in the Munising area.

The next agate was found by Shea Cullum at a gravel pit near Moose Lake, MN when we were there for Agate Days. Shea is the grandson of agate friends, Gerald and Jill Phillips. For his young age he is already a good agate hunter!

While at Moose Lake, Kate Terres from Minnesota came to my booth and asked me about a rock. As soon as I saw this wonderful tube agate, I asked her if I could put it on the web page.

I received an email from Rhonda Riebow a week or so ago. She and her husband, who are from DeWitt, MI, visited the museum and purchased the new agate book. In her email she said that the book helped her to “think like an agate,” after which she found a handful of agates in the Muskallonge Lake area, located 20 miles east of Grand Marais. She has sent the larger flat agate to me for face polishing.

The final agate featured this month is one found by Matt Kaufman. He and his family attended my agate lecture the other night. After I was done with the lecture, Matt came up to me and asked about a rock he had found east of Grand Marais. He found it in three feet of water just off shore and was not sure if he wanted to carry it back to the car. We are all glad that he did! There is botryoidal formation on one end, obvious pseudobands showing through the husk on top, a lot of translucent carnelian, and curlicue formation on the other end. Although there is not obvious concentric banding showing, it is still a terrific 3.5 pound agate! Congratulations Matt!

 

Agates found by three different people will be featured this month. First, Victor Irving from Fulton, MI came in with this mostly white agate. Translucency is a very important thing to look for while agate hunting. This agate certainly proves just how translucent Lake Superior agates can be.

The next agates were found by the Kozakov family who visit Grand Marais every year from Brighton, MI to hunt for agates. They had just arrived at 4:00 pm the day before coming into the museum. They already had 4 or 5 glass jars full of higher quality agates plus some other lesser quality ones in a box. The best one they found is featured individually. It was found by son, Adrian. The father, Sviatoslav, found most of the agates in the jar.

 

The rocks are plentiful at the current time due to a lot of spring storms that have, at least for now, pushed the rocks up onto the beach.

Here are a couple of shots of an unusually colored moss agate that I found on Mother’s Day.

John Lubor from Minnesota found this agate very early in the spring.

Sue Wiersom was also out agate hunting in early spring when there was still ice on the beach. She was rewarded with this little gem.

 

I recently received another email from Tina Allera, from Canton, MI. Pictured below are some more Lake Superior agates that she found in the Grand Marais area.

 

Late last year I received an email from Tina Allera, from Canton, MI. They come to Grand Marais agate hunting every year. In her email, she says she loves looking at the other customer agate finds. Well her agates have now made the web page. She found all four of these agates right in town.

 

While at the Muskallonge Show in September at Deer Park, several people brought agates by to show me – all day long! Here are just a few.

Susie Hales from Clare, MI showed me this 10 pound agate found near Grand Marais. She calls it the brain agate.

Donna Sheehan from Cedar, MI displayed several agates, including this interesting paint stone agate with colors from the southwest.

John Marchese from Newberry, MI showed me several agates including this paint stone agate and peeler agate.

Dick Wheeler from Pike Lake, MI found this large three pounder.

Sally Ahrndt from Skandia, MI was showing off this 100 year old Scottish agate broach.

This month I have several customer agate finds to entertain your rockhoundedness. Although the picture does not do the agate justice, a frequent visitor to the Grand Marais area found this bizarre agate that has amethyst bands as well as brecciated agate sections. He also found a fairly large carnelian agate – but the photo of this specimen did not turn out. Sviatoslav Kozakov is from Warren, MI. They make several trips back and forth all summer long to look for agates. His daughter, Zorian, who is two years old, is also a junior rockhound. One of the very first words she spoke was “agate.”

The next series of agates were shown to me last weekend while I was in the Paradise/Whitefish Point area. First is Becki Cornish, who lives in the Paradise, MI area. She first brought in this lacey amethyst agate to the Whitefish Township Library while I was giving my agate lecture.

Then, when I was at the Shipwreck Museum, she brought in this beautiful Lake Superior agate that also has an amethyst section.

With Becki on that Friday, was her rockhounding friend, Sheryl Wegmann. Sheryl spends time in the Paradise area in the summer, but is from Corpus Christy, Texas. She found two incredible agates, both with a yellow cast which is typical of many of the agates found at the eastern end of Lake Superior.

Finally, another agate I saw at the library was brought in by Joan Snyder. At first glance, the agate looks like sandstone. But upon closer examination, especially after we applied water, the beautiful banding was exposed. My guess is that this is an agate that formed in a sedimentary rock pocket. What a beautiful specimen!

 

The cool windy weather has tested agate hunters during the past month. There have been a few good days, though, and a few great agates found locally.

The first one to be featured this month is a different looking brecciated agate found by Larry Feist of Grand Rapids, MI. A breccia is a fragmental rock whose components are angular, which compares to a conglomerate that has water worn rounded pebbles. This brecciated rock seems to include fragments of amethyst and chrysoprase, as well as some banded sections.

While attending the Moose Lake Agate Days show, I also was shown this very large brecciated agate. Notice how the matrix in which the fragments are cemented is completely different than the Feist agate.

Just the other day this ¾ pounder was brought into the museum by Jeff Robbins. It has almost a perfect concentric banded face on top. This treasure was found by Jeff Robbins from Lake City, MI. He found it on the beach near Muskallonge Lake, east of Grand Marais.

While I was at the Muskallonge Show a couple of weeks ago, a woman drove from the museum to Muskallonge to show me the following agate:

I was so busy that I forgot to take a picture with her and the rock, and I forgot to get her name. However, it is such an unusual specimen that I wanted to include it anyway in this month’s update.

One of the other dealers said he thought it was man-made. I don’t agree. I have seen similar agate-looking rocks which are actually accumulations from paint booths. However, those usually include more brilliant colors and those specimens are opaque – all of the bands. Furthermore, those paint-rocks all have solid bands, not any with miniature geode gaps.

This specimen looked a lot different than anything I’ve ever seen. Some of the bands appear to be clear chalcedony. I didn’t take a picture of the top of the specimen, but there was sedimentary matrix showing on the top.

My guess is that this is a seam agate that formed in sedimentary rock in a marine environment, perhaps in the tidal flats.

The person who showed me the rock said she purchased it at an estate sale down state.

Do any of you have any more ideas about the genesis of this specimen?

While in Minnesota earlier this month, I went agate hunting with Kat and Ken from the Cuyuna Gem and Mineral Club. Kat Thomas showed me this cool eye agate that she found. She calls it her Owl Agate.

One of the best local agate hunters is Mary Capogrossa. She has been busy this spring and has not had much time to get out, but pictured below are some of her recent agates.