Lake Superior Agate Hunting in the Eastern U.P.

hey there uh sam and i just drove on the longest sandiest dirt road i've ever been on in my life we're about two miles west to the mouth of the two-hearted river i think uh we're in the middle of nowhere and i really hope that we make it back without getting stuck so hopefully this is a beach and nobody's really punched too much it looks good there's rocks here so let's go find some all right what do you have sam this looks kind of aggrady might be one of those weird pipes of saganite or skipping atom we're not really sure got some weird structures probably have to get a close-up video later yeah that's it's interesting i don't know where it is but true sports in the middle and some weird hold it in the sun a little more this way that's cool show me that other thing you found so sam thought that might be some sort of artifact i doubt it but those of you that know things about these sorts of things make a comment this area was all burnt over by a forest fire a few years ago so it's kind of dead but there's some new stuff coming up too yeah i found my first egg out of the day can you see it it's huge we just found this agate it's got some really fine bands on it it's probably hard to see him in the camera we'll put a still photo in i'll be able to see him up like that no i don't think so nope okay video i i will verify i look through it uh look through a magnifier at it and it does have bands all the way through it really neat [Applause] just grab this one i like the x on it there's a neat little piece we don't think it's an agate but it's got these fossils there and there yeah i'm guessing it's chirp but it's a it sure is an interesting piece of it taking that one home aren't you yeah yeah good call just pick this up i like the stripes on it i think i'll throw that in the tumbler just because it's really smooth already so be a really quick tumble and uh i like the stripes sam just found an omar which is short for omar luck it's a cool little rock what'd you say it looked like one of those egg chairs okay i wasn't getting a big mouth like rrr i've been forcing myself to stay up in the dry rocks today because i think that's a better place to find eggots but i got to tell you it's difficult because the draw of the pretty rocks in the water is strong so on the way back i'm going to reward myself by walking in the water just picked up a nice big chunk of banded shirt i'll go on the tumbler for sure look at sam's sad face he's been walking along close to the water and i've been walking up the beach more and he just switched places with me and about three minutes later i found this again so there's bands down in there so that's that's the biggest one of the trip there sam that's the biggest one of the trip look at poor sad sam oh i'm not gonna rub it in though i wouldn't do that sam just found another one it's got some banding in this red area here a little bit right on the end there yeah nice found another agate the bands are kind of all over there's not a ton of contrast in them but they're they're everywhere that's a nice one sam just found this and initially we both thought it was an agate but looking at it really closely the the lines just aren't quite crisp enough so i'm not sure if it is or not it's kind of not very straight around or not yeah something maybe yeah it might be an egg it's a it's a maggot it's a keeper for sure whatever it is is that shirt on the other side uh yeah i think so for the fossil yeah yeah that's really cool that little droozy pocket there neat that's that's really sparkly yeah i think that one's just quartz but i kind of like the stripe around there i think it'll tumble really well so that one's going in the bucket sam just said i win as in he wins so he's found something good i haven't seen it yet oh my gosh oh wow that's awesome i think that's a paint egg all the colors in there that is so cool yes you win you feel better about the one i found in your space now yeah now i say we're even no you're ahead i think by a lot okay sam and i each just found one um neither of you are probably gonna be able to see the bands but this was really bright right on the beach it's wet now and sam's just there right there there's an eye over here kind of a little in there maybe there yep got a potato skin in the back that's how i recognized it yeah cool on the back i've never seen one of dark spots like that we're still finding a couple look at the color on that one wow that's a really nice one yeah all the way around bands this is a fun day yeah i'm doing fun you having fun yeah look at my smile so not sure if this will tumble but i'm throwing the tumbler to give it a try because i like it don't know what that is for sure i just found a huge log on the beach makes a good seat well we've walked i don't know how many miles several miles the winds come up a little bit we're turned around going back so i'm heading into the water where everything's much more colorful it's a pretty rock look at that piece of unikite that's neat nice one so many pretty rocks along here a couple cool stripy rocks here that's really neat and then this one there's stripe there it's a different color of green not used to seeing that's pretty neat i just can't get enough of uh unikite and epidote kind of a different rock here you don't see that color combination all along here there's a bunch of black sand you can see where it's coming out of the hillside here i don't know how much gold there is in that i get back closer to the uh jeep i'm gonna pan a couple pans and we'll find out that's pretty neat i like that all right we're gonna paint a little bit of this black sand so throw some in there see a little red in there too some garnet that's heavy stuff all right take it down to the water yeah i don't see anything yeah we didn't do too well gold panning something in there okay sam and i have been on the beach for about six and a half hours and i'm going to give you a little lesson on how to find an agate even though i'm not very good at it sam's better so um here's what not to do one of the things that people say to look for is waxy rocks so shirt is a rock that's uh got a waxy look to it this is all examples of shirt most the church on this beach we're in the eastern upper peninsula is this yellowish brownish color whatever color that is so this is all chert another rock that can look waxy is jasper doesn't usually look as waxy as shirt whoops that's chirp but it can and so this is all jasper which is closely related banded or jasper and shirt are very closely related to agate they're all micro crystalline quartz sometimes if you're walking into the sun they'll kind of glow especially if the sun is low like in the evening or the morning so these rocks are quartz and they all kind of glow in the sunlight they're kind of translucent or these are opaque but these will grab your attention and they're not agate and then you know that agates have bands there's a lot of rocks that have stripes but that's not the same as bands um that's nice with a g and i'm not sure what that other one is but those are banded rocks that are not agates so none of these are agates but they're kind of look alike sometimes all right so i'm gonna let sam tell you about the uh the agates these are the ones we found today yeah there's more but this is the ones we picked out so agates are often translucent like this one it looks similar to quartz but like the red reddish orange in the middle and the texture often give it away they have like this potato type skin hold it a little farther away because it doesn't focus this is an example of an egg with a really potato skin often this is all you'll see they'll not they'll almost never look like this this is a really really nice agate you almost never never see bands often you just have to look for stuff like this the back side here's another potato we won this is the side with some bands there's often really fine banding and here's option translucency like this one this one's waxy it kind of looks like quartz almost it's brown for that you look for reds and browns often because there's iron staining in most agates in the up right so these are my agates over here uh these are some of sam's he found more but he hunted me as usual so we might let them come back next year but gotta decide so uh thanks for watching and we'll see you next time [Music] you

Channel: Michigan Rocks

Views: 49,714

Keywords: Michigan Rocks, Michigan, Two Hearted River, Beach, Lake Superior Agate, Lake Superior, Agate, rockhounding, rockhound, rock hounding, Rock hound, Rock hunting, Beach walk, beach combing, unakite, how to find agates, black sand, agate hunting, agate hunt, LSA, drone, drone video

Id: dKqlFAkOs5A

Length: 17min 13sec (1033 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 18 2021