Calumet Copper EarthCache
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EarthCache is located in Keweenaw National Historical Park, Calumet, MI. To claim this Earthcache, you must post your PICTURE taken with it on your log, MEASURE THE WIDTH OF THE SPECIMEN (within 2 inches)just below the plaque and Groundspeak message the answer to the Cache owner, Gimli's Hoard. Now known as Jefe &The Phoenix.
The Lake Superior basin is a mineral rich area and the first mineral 'mined' was copper. There are two areas of the basin where the copper forms veins that were (they are mined out today) visible at the surface. The Keweenaw Peninsula and Isle Royale are where the first copper was mined.
The history of Lake Superior copper is one that extends up and down the Americas. Copper from the Keweenaw has been found in Inca burials. It has been found in the form of spearheads, in the most northern reaches, of Turtle Island. It has been found all over the Western Hemisphere. It was a rare and major trade item going back into time, as far as one can, in this land.
Pieces of mass copper exposed and transported by Ice Age Glaciers ar known as float copper. This specimen is similar to the Ontonogan Boulder, which sparked a rush to the Keweenaw Peninsula in the 1840's. The Keweenaw Boulder now is housed in the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. The float copper in question was found in 1970, 4 1/2 miles west of Calumet buried in 3 feet of soil and weighs 9392 pounds!
The Keweenaw Peninsula of Michigan was home to one of our nation's first mineral rushes. Prospectors seeking copper travelled there in the middle 1840's, a few years before the "49'ers" sought gold out west. The story of this rush is told today at Keweenaw National Historical Park. Red Jacket (now known as Calumet) grew due to the copper mines in the area. It was incorporated as a town in 1867. The copper mines were particularly rich; the Red Jacket-based Calumet and Hecla Mining Company produced more than half of the USA's copper from 1871 through 1880. You will be able to visit several copper mining sites while you visit the Keweenaw peninsula.
"Float" copper is found throughout the "Copper Country" of Michigan and many nearby states. Glacial movements thousands of years ago altered the geologic deposits of the native copper by tearing and scouring the land. Copper, along with other rocks, gravel, and sand were constantly tumbled and deposited over large areas of the Upper Midwestern United States. Exposures to the soils, water, and air has oxidized the copper surface a bright green. Copper is widely distributed in the oxidized zones of many sulfide copper deposits where it may be accompanied by cuprite, malachite, azurite, tenorite and limonite. It also occurs in sedimentary rocks and cavities in volcanic rocks. Copper may psuedomorphically replace other minerals such as malachite, cuprite, azurite and chalcopyrite.
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