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Dwarves' Earth Treasures Online Museum:
Clark Datolites found by JA
Clark Mine, Copper Harbor, Keweenaw CO., Michigan
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    The Clark Mine is one of most well known and most visited mine for the datolites that it was mentioned even in many old books on collecting in Michigan and even today, it is still being visited by many people. It is funny how the Clark mine is better known for its datolites instead of copper, and like Star, Montreal and other nearby mines, Clark Mine is one of those early mines to be opened (around 1840s to 1850s), but did not produce sufficient supply of copper.
    With an exception of illegal attempt at bulldozing (he was caught), it's one of very few mines that I know of that had not been bulldozed or hauled away for rock crushing. Many datolites from Clark Mine are white and some consist of many datolite nodules squeezed together while few orange datolites are sometimes found in some spots around Clark Mine. I didn't know that some orange datolites had been found until I started digging there on August 2010 and by chance hit on a nest of datolites (about 35 datolites in one spot) including a block of "mudrock" with several datolites still attached to it.


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All specimens below are found by JA


My first datolites found at from Clark Mine, August 2008 Bright orange color, August 2010
August 2009 Greenish hue, August 2009 No colors, August 2010
August 2010 August 2010 August 2010
"Dirty Orange" color,  August 2010 Brown colors, August 2010 "Dirty Orange" color, August 2010
"Dirty Orange" color, August 2010 August 2010 August 2010


Bright orange to red datolites in matrix, August 2010

Many dirty orange datolites in this mudrock found by Jeffrey A. August 2010.
A great specimen to sew how datolites are formed in the mud filling in the cracks within boron rich basalt beds.
It was said that the trees would root quickly into the datolite rich mudrocks and the miners would
start their mining efforts to find copper usually associated with datolite veins.
That may explain the myth of digging for datolites under the trees at the piles.