# petoskey stones



## icecathound (Feb 16, 2006)

cool find ive been finding petoskey stones in my back yard. i had a pond dug to use as back fill around my house and in the diggings ive been finding petoskey stones. is this unusual or is it fairly common. ive never heard of it before i thought they were only found in and around petoskey. since i am a couple hundred miles from there i thought it kind of odd. anyone ever hear of them being found in south central michigan.


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## Oldgrandman (Nov 16, 2004)

Found plenty in and around the Manistee river (hodenpyle pond) and the Mesick area in general.


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## FishermanJohn (Apr 24, 2007)

I've found them in my backyard in Livonia,at my cottage near Jackson, and pretty much everywhere else I've looked for them. I believe they're pretty commonly found statewide.


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## Royal Whaler (Oct 10, 2004)

I've found them along the shoreline of Lake Huron in the thumb.


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## walleye (Aug 12, 2006)

They're pretty common around the state. The glaciers deposited them all over.


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## icecathound (Feb 16, 2006)

thats cool i thought they were only around petoskey. great info thanks for the input


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## Fishndude (Feb 22, 2003)

There are lots of them in Tawas bay.


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## Liver and Onions (Nov 24, 2000)

At least for me, there is a difference between a Petoskey Stone and a piece of fossilized coral. I would agree that fossilized coral can found most anywhere. I thought that in order to be called a Petoskey Stone the fossilized coral had to have been rounded and smoothed by the glaciers.
Anyways, a long time ago the area that we now call Michigan had to be much closer to the equator to be warm enough to be a warm sea and have coral growing.

L & O


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## ChapstickCharlie (Jan 15, 2003)

So how do you pollish them?


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## Fecus (Apr 12, 2006)

Ive found one it the upper clinton river by yates. But the best place to find them is on the Leelanau penensula.

They are all fossils of coral that was once abundant in the niagrian reef. From what I was told it ran from Escanaba area to the Niagra falls.


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## ih772 (Jan 28, 2003)

Liver and Onions said:


> At least for me, there is a difference between a Petoskey Stone and a piece of fossilized coral. I would agree that fossilized coral can found most anywhere. I thought that in order to be called a Petoskey Stone the fossilized coral had to have been rounded and smoothed by the glaciers.
> Anyways, a long time ago the area that we now call Michigan had to be much closer to the equator to be warm enough to be a warm sea and have coral growing.
> 
> L & O


It's the type of coral that makes it a Petosky stone. It's scientific name, for lack of better words, is _Hexagonaria percarinata_. I've found quite a few in the thumb that were not rounded by being on a shoreline, but were rough and about the size of softballs. The same thing for agates.


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## ih772 (Jan 28, 2003)

ChapstickCharlie said:


> So how do you pollish them?


With a rock polisher.


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## Greenbush future (Sep 8, 2005)

Sand papaer and patients works too, couple o beers and whalla!


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## Oldgrandman (Nov 16, 2004)

Here is an interesting link I found, had no idea they could be found in places like Arizona and Alaska.

http://www.michigan.gov/documents/hal_mhc_mhm_petoskey_63854_7.pdf


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## Overdew (Sep 7, 2004)

ih772 said:


> With a rock polisher.


I tried a rock polisher and they came out half the size, better off just coating with plastic urathane.


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## ESOX (Nov 20, 2000)

Overdew said:


> I tried a rock polisher and they came out half the size, better off just coating with plastic urathane.


You may have polished them just a tad bit excessively. 
Not polishing them because you over tumbled them once is like eating all your hamburgers raw because you burnt one once.


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## puttputt (Aug 2, 2005)

well, crap. of course you can now find them all over the world because the dang fudgies have been hounding the shores of Little Traverse Bay and taking them back home for over a century now...


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## Linda G. (Mar 28, 2002)

Those of you who are fans who are planning on being up north this spring might be interested in this...

www.petoskeystonefestival.com

It's a great festival, lots of fun, a beach hunt with seeded stones, a stone skipping contest, a kid's essay contest, and the best Petoskey Stone and Michigan gemstone dealers in the state that will sell, buy, cut and polish your Petoskeys for you.

I'm the festival committee chair. Anyone with questions please get in touch, we're also still accepting sponsors and vendors. Looking for GOOD food vendors.


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## ChapstickCharlie (Jan 15, 2003)

Linda that sounds like a ball! I will pass that on to all my fudgies down here in Indiana.


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## Linda G. (Mar 28, 2002)

It is a lot of fun. We also have a kid's trout fishing pond (free), a clown, a juggler and magician, and a canine police dog demonstration. This year we're hoping to offer games done by the local fire department, which is a fundraiser for them, and a "smokehouse"...a cardboard house that's filled with fake smoke that kids can practice getting out of in case of fire. Lots of fun, but educational, too. 

Loads of door prizes, too, last year we gave out more than $500 in prizes, about 200 of them. 

The finest Petoskeys in the state will be sold there, and lots are given away, too. Hundreds, just in what's seeded on the beach.

You can come and talk to the DEQ, too, their geological services section has a booth-the only "fun" function they do all year, they tell me. 

This is our 3rd year, and every year it's getting bigger. Last year we had almost 4000 people through.


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