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Dwarves' Earth Treasures Museum:
Lake Superior Agates of Michigan
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      Here's the famous "Lakers" a short name for Lake Superior Agates well known throughout the Midwest states especially Minnesota where most Lake Superior agates have been found. They also can be found in other states like Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa, Kansas, and some states along the Mississippi river. They have 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 could have formed any time after the solidification 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 come in any colors maybe except green. Alternating bold red and white banding seems to be most desirable of any Lakers. There are some basalt outcrops where the agates are found still attached to them amd the agates were scrapped from the basalt hosts of agates and deposited by the glaciers several thousand years ago. As a result, the agates are scattered all over the glacial deposits and along Lake Superior shorelines in the Midwest states and all the way down the Mississippi river. Even so, good sized agates of good quality are hard to find or it could be just that they're gobbled up by just few experienced agate-finders.
    Although Minnesota seem to have  produced more better agates, some basalt beds and Lake Superior shorelines of Michigan have their own share of Lake Superior agates. They are generally small and in red, brown, orange and white colors, but some larger agates have been found which can rival the Minnesota agates. They are found along the northern shores of the Keweenaw Point, and the shores from Grand Marais, Michigan, (not Minnesota) to WhiteFish Point.  The reason why the agates are found along those shoreines is that the agate-bearing basalt beds continued under Lake Superior from Keweenaw Peninnsula to the area between Grand Marais and WhiteFish Point and still continued under lower Peninsula of Michigan based on the drill cores. The glaciers also have picked up some agates from the eastern arm of the agate-bearing basalt beds and scattered them over the Lower Peninnsula of Michigan like one I found at Roscommon County (middle of northern Lower Michigan). Such agate-bearing basalt beds can be noted around Copper Harbor and Ontaganon  but they tend to be widely fractured due to so many million years of weathering.

YOU CAN CLICK ON THE PICTURES TO SEE LARGER PICTURES

Typical examples of agates found along the shorelines of Lake Superior.
They look like melted, hardened and tumbled wax with crescent-like fractures.

This is my first agate find (has whole face)
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		 Largest banded agate I have found so far
Keystone Bay of Keweenaw Point
August 2008
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
Rare to find an agate that is not too fractured
From the basalt hosts west of Copper Harbor
Found by Jeffrey A. August 2009		 Typical fractured agate
From the basalt hosts west of Copper Harbor
Found by Jeffrey A. August 2009
.........................................................................		 Typical fractured agate
From the basalt hosts west of Copper Harbor
Found by Jeffrey A. August 2009
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 of 1992(?)
(Rockhound holiday), when I was just a young teen. I'm sure that most agates came
from somewhere else and they were intentionally "seeded" on the agate beach.
The agates never have been removed from the jar since that time.