what rock is this?

Forty-eight things you can pick up on a Michigan beach, every one with the single observation that separates it from the stone it gets confused with. No app required, no guessing, no photograph of a rock fed to a machine that will confidently tell you the wrong answer.

sorted by how rarely you will find one

BEFORE YOU FILL A BUCKET

On Michigan state land the limit is 25 pounds per person per year, and that is everything combined, rocks and minerals and invertebrate fossils together, for your own use and not for sale. It is one allowance, not one per stone.

In a national park it is nothing at all. That includes Sleeping Bear Dunes, which covers about thirty-five miles of the Leelanau and Benzie shore, plus Pictured Rocks and Isle Royale. National wildlife refuges are the same, and Whitefish Point is one of them. Mine rock piles in the Keweenaw are private ground.

Take what you love, leave the rest for the lake.

grail · 100 of each

ultra rare · 150 of each

rare · 250 of each

uncommon · 500 of each

the fossils · 500 of each

the bedrock · 1000 of each

Keep track of what you find

The Rock Journal is a free field journal for your finds. It does not identify anything. It records what you found, where and when, and turns it into a card the rock groups can actually answer. Nothing leaves your phone unless you send it.

open the journal · free the stickers · five for $20