Dwarves' Earth Treasures Online Museum:
Hill Fissure Datolites
Vicinity of Copper Falls, Keweenaw CO., Michigan
Field-collecting Status:  "No Treapassing signs" are posted
in the forest just behind the Rest Area.


    The Hill Fissure is hidden in the forest behind the Rest Area within the vicinity of Copper Falls and it's tricky to find it since the diggings are hidden behind an overgrown mine tailing that looks like a straight hill. The area was pretty heavily dug out by so many datolite collectors and not much has been found despite my efforts to clear the junk rocks off the now depleted seam, and in August 2007, I decided to come back to this area to give it another chance. I happen to take a wrong turn and ended up in the place loaded with datolite enriched rocks where very sparse digging had been done. As a result, I was able to obtain many "mudrocks" containing datolites which are mostly white due to bleaching but I have found some with orange dots, greenish tints and even yellow ones! It takes a lot of cutting and grinding to find those with some colors.
Click on for larger map
You can click on the pictures to see larger pictures.
All datolites are found by Jeffrey Anderson

"William Taft Stuck in a bathtub" August 2009	Typical datolite with unbleached areas (grayish) August 2007
A couple of rare yellow datolites August 2007	Typical gray and opaque
Both Contain red dots August 2007	Rare very dark datolite from old diggings, August 1995
Typical white datolite in its  unusually large size in the basaltic mudrock	with rare green color (large picture not available yet) August 2007