New Mexico Mineral Symposium — Abstracts

It is now the end of September and the 2021 collecting season is coming to an end in the Michigan Copper Country. Fall is here—the days are shorter with cooler evenings are cooler mornings. The fall foliage is turning a vivid red and yellow and fall tourists are coming to the Keweenaw before everything turns white.

In the past two years since my last talk on the Copper Country, collecting has slowed down and so have I. I’m now an old geezer of 80 years and no more scrambling up mine dumps, hiking to remote localities, or midnight mining ventures. I still manage to collect almost every day but at a much slower pace. I'm fortunate in having a younger energetic partner who helps me in my liberations.

Ramblings and Rumblings from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan Thomas Rosemeyer Crushing of mine dumps is still ongoing for construction and logging operations. The property owners of the mine dumps have been helpful with collectors and many specimens have been saved from the jaws of the crusher. There have been many small individual finds and some will be mentioned in my talk.

One in particular will be mentioned and that was the discovery of a vein of crystallized silver. The discovery was made along Silver Creek in Keweenaw County. Over a period of three weeks, almost 300 specimens of native silver were recovered from a 10 by 10 foot area. Most of the specimens were approximately a centimeter in size but about 20 pieces ranged up to 8 cm in size. Hopefully this will be a teaser to sit a few minutes longer and not leave to be early in line for the famous breakfast burrito on Saturday morning.