#Crystals to open roads skin

These spectacular pieces are on privately owned lands that are kept freely open to the public for tax write-off reasons and thus it’s perfectly legal to collect there.

Incredibly fascinating to a rock nerd like me! Only a few minutes later, I found a fragment of a much larger crystal that had been blown up by explosives decades ago showing the exact same curvature. So it can’t be caused by stress or deformation since none of the neighboring crystals were affected, but by a flaw in the crystal lattice of the quartz itself. We discussed whether it could be caused by deformation of the rocks, but on closer inspection we can see that only a single crystal was bent and not any others in the specimen. I honestly had never heard of curved quartz crystals- I’m familiar with changes of angle and such, but to have it bow shaped… that was odd. That Shawn Carlson, to whom we are deeply indebted for an amazing day of collecting. And my old friend from 20 years ago who scared me sh*tless by taking me to the most terrifyingly dangerous locations I could only dream up in my most fevered nightmares. Sorry.Ĭody and I were brought to this amazing location by Shawn Carlson, one of Michigan’s most remarkable geologists: former diamond exploration geologist from the Canadian arctic, uranium exploration geologist, mineralogist discoverer of more than 40 minerals in Michigan and the man who identified Erik Rintamaki’s “ Yooperlite” as fluorescent sodalite and wrote the paper on it, the author of the 3rd edition of the Mineralogy of Michigan that he made freely available through the Seaman Mineral Museum website because he believes everyone should have ready access to every piece of knowledge. We can’t have that on our conscience and that’s why the MI Rockhounds team won’t give you the exact location unless trails in the area are improved in the coming years.

#Crystals to open roads skin

The roads are impassable, you must hike off trail through blackberry brambles taller than you that tear at your skin while avoiding unexpected cliffs and slopes that will send you tumbling to certain injury. The location is legal to access, but if we did make the exact location public, deaths would be on our hands. Mindat locations are often wrong, frankly. Please don’t try diving to the bottom of the lake to find them, the location is off by several miles and you’ll risk drowning for nothing.