.	Dwarves' Earth Treasures Museum: Lake Superior Agates of Michigan	.

      Here be the famous "Lakers" a short name for Lake Superior Agates well known throughout the Midwest states especially Minnoseta, the source of best Lake Superior agates. They can be found in other states like Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa, and some states along the Mississippian river. They were formed in a billion years old basaltic lava formations of Lake Superior (all the way to Kansas), and the actual age of agates themselves are not known since they can be formed any time after the solification of basalt lava beds. If they're that old, I would be quite amazed that they're still intact despite hundreds of millions years of weathering. Those agates are really lucky that they escaped the destructive tectonic forces of the active and everchanging Earth.
    Red, brown, gray, orange and white seem to be most common colors of the Lakers, but they can include other but more rare colors. Alternating bold red and white bands seems to be most desirable of any Lakers. They had been found in their basalt lava rocks, but most agates found in the Great Lakes states were removed from their host rocks and deposited by the ancient glaciers several tens of thousands years ago. So the agates were scattered all over the glacial deposits and along Lake Superior shorelines in Minnesota (most adundant), Wisconsin and Michigan, and some agates were carried to the south by the Mississippi river. Even so, good sized agates of good quality are hard to find.
    Although Minnesota had produced more and higher quality agates, some basalt beds and the beaches of Keweenaw Peninsula, Michigan does produce its share of Lake Superior agates, and they are generally small, but some agates especially those coming from the Keweenaw Point of Michigan had been found that rival the quality of those from Minnesota. The agate-bearing basalt beds did not end with the Keweenaw Point, instead, it would continue under Lake Superior toward the stretch of shoreline from Mardis Grande(Michigan, not Minnesota) to Whitefish Point where the agates have been found. The glaciers had brought the agates from those basalt beds under Lake Superior and deposited them randomly throughout the Lower Peninsula of Michigan and I had found only one in Roscommon County (middle of northern Lower Michigan).

This is my first and only Agate I have found in at a gravel pit near Roscommom, Michigan, my hometown.	This is best agate I have been able to find at WhiteFish Point, Michigan July 2007
This orange pair came directly from a basalt matrix just west of Copper Harbor, Keweenaw Co., Michigan. Fractures are typical in those agates likely due to freezing & thawing of water stored within the fractures.	"Ledge" Agate from a basalt ledge West(?) of Copper Harbor,  Keweenaw Co., Michigan

Rare Lake Superior Amethyst,
Copper Harbor, Keweenaw Co., MI

Front View

Back View

I have more in this jar . I got them from an "Agate Hunt"  taken place on
an agate beach east of Copper Harbor, Michigan during  the 2nd Keweenaw Week
(Rockhound holiday), when I was just a young teen. I'm sure that most agates came
from Minnoseta that were "seeded" on the agate beach on purpose.