• Monday-What'sUP August 22 - 07:57 am

A visit to the shores of Lake Superior just isn't complete if you don't do a little rock-hounding while you're enjoying the splashing waves. Clinton Drake made sure his recent stay included rocks in the water, water on the rocks, rocks on rocks in the water . . . he covered all the bases so he didn't miss anything! Isn't it amazing how ordinary looking stones are transformed to a thing of beauty once the waters of the Big Lake touch them?

As a kid, I would get a kick out of watching my uncle's drop marbles at the edge of the water, drove the agate hunters crazy!

Snorkeling in water on the conglomerate coast between Eagle Harbor and Copper Harbor I've found what I call dinosaur nests. They are pits in the lake bottom rock approximately 2 feet across and up to a couple of feet deep where the wave action is greatest, with 2 or more large round granite rocks in them. The water must tumble the granite around increasing the size of the pits by grinding the softer conglomerate down. Kind of neat, a nest with rounded rock eggs all under water!

Oh, those rocks bring back memories! We used to camp with our five boys in Copper Harbor each year. One year, my husband buried a nickel under a tree root along a path going down to the lake. Each year, the kids would try to find it--and they did! (Water must not have been high those years or it would have washed away.)

It's been eleven years since I've been back. I wonder, wistfully, if that nickel is still there.

That is one way depressions form, although I wouldn't say it's as much the granite grinding the conglomerate as the cobbles in the conglomerate being plucked out either by erosion from ice jams along the shore or glacial activity when the lakes were formed. The granite, along with diorite and gabbro, are from Canada and were carried here by the glaciers then dropped out when the ice retreated.

There was a really nice story about the Keweenaw in the Chicago Tribune Sunday edition.

Here is the link

Great story, Chris. Thanks for the link.

The Dinosaur nest post reminds me. About 25 yrs ago on one of our family venturs to the UP. We swam in Lake Superior, some place on the east shore. You could walk out a long ways and it was still shallow. The lake bottom was sand stone ( not Red) and in the sandstone were white Ribs about two and a half feet long about four inches apart. This rib cage was about five feet total. We imagined it was a dinosaur it was fun.

That was north of Gay. Piked Huckle berries there on another visit.

About the Sunday (August 20, 2006) Chicago Tribune story about the Keweenaw:

Alan Solomon wrote (emphasis is mine):
"The Upper Peninsula of Michigan, which kind of floats in Lake Michigan and Lake Superior over Lower Michigan and Upper Wisconsin, is shaped like a decomposing westbound shark. ... The Keweenaw is the decomposing dorsal fin jutting into Lake Superior."

and also concerning the drive along U.S. 41 from the Portage Lake Lift Bridge to Copper Harbor:

"... the last 10 miles or so of the 50-mile route either wind through a tree tunnel (mostly hardwoods, colors ablaze if you time it right) or along water (Lake Medford or Superior). "

As I said (in part) in my email to Alan:

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Quote:

1. I guess not! � decomposing shark indeed! What have you been smoking?

Every "Yooper" knows that Michigan's Upper Peninsula is a rabbit, jumping westward over the Lower Peninsula's "mitten"! Where'd ya s'pose the Town of Rabbit Bay and the adjacent bay (above the lift bridge, on the eastern shore of Houghton County) got its name?

The rabbit's nose is at the westernmost tip of the peninsula, at the mouth of the Montreal River - about 15 miles northwest of Ironwood, its front legs extend down past Escanaba to Menominee, its ears form the Keweenaw peninsula, its rear legs are outstretched to the east, past Sault Sainte Marie and Saint Ignace, toward Drummond Island, and its cotton tail forms the northern tip of Chippewa county, from Paradise up to Whitefish Point, while its narrow waist extends from Au Train to about Nahma Junction, and the Huron Mountains north and west of Marquette give the rabbit a bit of a "humpback". (See enclosed picture.)

2. Lake Medford? I guess not!

I challenge you to find a "Lake Medford" anywhere in the Upper Peninsula, or anywhere in Michigan, for that matter.

Perhaps you meant Lake Medora, which lies along the north side of US-41, about 5 miles west-southwest of Copper Harbor.

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The UP "rabbit"

Of course the UP is a rabbit!
A rabbit leaping westward.
I live on Drummond Island,
so I guess we're a tu--

Oh, never mind!

Mona, you've a wicked sense of humor, I like it.
FRNash, hard to believe the writer was that misinformed, just didn't care for his asssignment, most likely.
Allen, would that sandstone have been at/near Burnette Park?

Poseidon's tire tracks near Little Presque Isle.
http://www.wishpalace.com/upload_pictures/America/343.JPG

Keep up your great sense of humor Mona! I would of never thought of that! I live in Ontonagon County so we must be the O in the eye? Tryin' to figure that one out yet, lol. Its great just to live in the U.P.!

Uncle Chuck,

Being a girl from Gay, now living in FL, it warms my heart to see a Little Betsy address!