.	Dwarves' Earth Treasures Museum: "Copper Country" Agates from Copper Mines of Michigan	.

        Well, I really don't like to call those agates "Lake Superior Agates" because they are, in many ways, too different from Lake Superior Agates found along the beaches of Keweenaw Peninsula of Michigan. Since they came directly from the copper mines themselves, I would rather call them "Copper Country Agates" . The agates are generally small with white to pink colors and they seem to be found exclusively at the mine dumps mined from the Kearsage Lobe. The examples of the copper mines along the Kearsage lobe are Laurium, LaSalle, Centennial, Kearsage, Mohawk, Wolverine and Ojibway. The Wolverine #2 mine seem to have produced best agates of that type so far.
    What is so unusual about the Wolverine #2 Mine is that it is the only place in the world known to produce the agates containing native copper inclusions that can be seen wtihout any use of microscopes and some even contain interlaying of agate, prehnite, calcite, chloride and epidote. No one are sure how the copper got in the agates. Some said said that the soft parts of agates rotted away and the copper filled in the gaps, and others said that they were formed in succession fashion.  I have seen how copper and calcite competed against each other as they grow in the same time, and it's possible that the agate and copper may have done the same as they grow a layer by layer. Prehnite and chloride inclusions in the agates also seem to support this idea. It is not easy to find good ones with obvious copper inclusions and one would cut/grind many agate nodules and find only few containing copper inclusions.

Very rare agate with visible copper inclusions Wolverine #2 Mine, Houghton Co., Michigan August 2005	Typical pink agate Ojibway Mine,  Keweenaw Co., Michigan
Ojibway Mine,  Keweenaw Co., Michigan August 2006	LaSalle Mine, Keweenaw Co., Michigan August 2005
with very rare greenish chloride inclusions, Wolverine #2 Mine, Houghton Co., Michigan August 2006	With copper inclusions Wolverine #2 Mine, Houghton Co., Michigan August 2006
With rare chloride & copper inclusions Wolverine #2 Mine, Houghton Co., Michigan August 2007	Interlaying with prehnite, epidote and copper Wolverine #2 Mine, Houghton Co., Michigan August 2006