Dwarves' Earth Treasures: Datolites from Mesnard Mine of Michigan

Dwarves' Earth Treasures Online Museum:
Mesnard Datolites
Mesnard Mine, Hancock, Houghton Co., Michigan
Field-collecting Status: Private Property, No trespassing!

. The Mesnard mine is the eastern extension of the Quincy Mine along the Pewabic Lode famed for its colorful datolites. There was a story of young men sneaking down the shaft of the Mesnard Mine and bringing back up with a bucket of yellowish to reddish datolites (illegal collecting!). The dark skinned datolites from the Mesnard mine come in quite a wide range of colors such as white, pink, peach, red, orange and yellow and some are coarse grained. The collection of datolite is still severely limited since the piles are owned by Quincy Hoist Association and collecting is usually not allowed. I think the piles were opened to collecting tours few times during Keeweenaw Week. Some miner named Bud Townsend was said to picked up the best datolites during his work at Quincy, Mesnard and Franklin mines and I was able to obtain a few.

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You can click on the pictures to see larger pictures.

"Sunburst" Datolite, one of my best datolites in my collection
Two similar specimens possibly from the same seam were in the collection
of University of Wisconsin displayed at Detroit show (Oct. 2019)
and originally in now-deceased Wayne S.'s collection.
This one has quite a story. John Peoria recognized this specimen since he had seen it when
he was a miner working in the Mesnard mine. The unpolished specimen was picked up by his supervisor
and somehow it ended up in Arizona before I acquired it via a trade. I personally polished it.


Orangish yellow color	Pair.

With calcite inclusion (grew there before datolite did)	Peach colored

Reddish "Fireworks Bursts"	Unusually coarse grained specimen