CHAMPION MINE
SPECULARITE
Fun rock collecting can be
had at the old waste rock piles surrounding the Champion Mine at Beacon, just
to the west of the small town of Champion, western Marquette County, western UP
of Michigan.
The Champion Mine exploited
the Negaunee Iron-Formation (upper Menominee Group, Marquette Range
Supergroup, mid-Paleoproterozoic, 2.11 billion years (or 1.874 b.y.),
and the waste rock piles in the vicinity have beautiful, sparkly-silver specularites
(aka specular hematite schist - rocks dominantly composed of specular
hematite/micaceous hematite - Fe2O3) all over the
place. Specularites are the result of moderate metamorphism of iron
formation (the full story is much more complex). The rocks here include
specularite, quartzitic specularite, and specularitic quartzite. Some
samples are moderately magnetic.
Specularite (close-up) from the
Negaunee Iron-Formation (2.11 b.y.) at Champion Mine, Beacon, UP of Michigan,
USA.
GPS of rock pile: 46° 30.435' N, 87° 59.035'
W.