Geotours

Isle Royale Field Trip

We lead one day long geotours on the Geoelements of Keweenaw Geoheritage. These tours use ground and boat transportation and visit some of the most important places identified by the website. We use the university research boat, the RV Agassiz.

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Read press release about trip on July 28, 2016.

Keweenaw Geoheritage Field/Boat Trips--
July 21-30, 2018
July 21 Lavas and the Keweenaw Rift Details
This trip is to see and understand the Keweenaw’s black rocks and its deep earth volcanism past. It is the site of Earth largest lava outpourings. Magma oceans existed here. We will see the huge lava flows and how they shape and influence the peninsula.
Highlights of the trip include: The Great lava reefs and shipwrecks of the Eagle Harbor to Copper Harbor shore, The Greenstone Flow (Earth’s Largest) and its anatomy, Copper and lavas--how do they relate? Manitou Island and the Lake Shore Traps.

July 23 Keweenaw Fault Details
This trip is to see and understand the Keweenaw Fault, a massive thrust fault which was the locus of hundreds of high magnitude earthquakes and which split the peninsula lengthwise and uplifted rocks, including copper to a place where people could find it.
We will visit the Fault along the Keweenaw shore at Keweenaw P oint and Bete Grise and then Mt Bohemia, Gratiot Lake, Trap Rock Valley, the Natural Wall, Hungarian Falls, and the Pilgrim River Valley.

July 24 Jacobsville Sandstone Details
This trip is to see and understand the red rocks that were carried by rivers from the Huron Mountains (which were huge then) into the great valley of the Keweenaw rift. The best way is via the lake, where we will visit Pt Isabelle, Point Louis, Rabbit Island, Traverse Bays, Rabbit Bay and Jacobsville/Lower Entry.

July 25 Mining Sands of Lake Superior Today Details
Mining waste materials from Keweenaw Copper, the Gay and Torch Lake Sands present continuing and unique challenges to the environment of Lake Superior and the Keweenaw Waterway. We will visit and discuss these sands from both boat and land, at Gay, Big Traverse and Lake Linden.

July 26 Keweenaw Glacial Geology Details
This trip is to see the glacial deposits of the Keweenaw and to understand the glacial history of the area. The Keweenaw was recently covered with more than two miles of ice, and the evidence for this is abundant, and all around us. We will visit local glacial features such as the esker near Mandan, moraine near Copper City and Calumet, glacial outwash in Hancock and Allouez, glacial grooves, erratic boulders, kettle lakes and kame terraces, using the boat traverses to see many of these features from the water. The glacial history and how the lake has evolved since glacial retreat has had a strong influence on our landscapes.

July 30 New Geotrip to Huron Bay and Huron Islands Details. This trip is to see Jacobsville Geosites that are found along the shores of Huron Bay, east of Keweenaw Bay. The boat trip starts at Witt’s Marina, and travels north to pass cliff exposures of Jacobsville and KLT sites where local access is facilitated. The source rocks for Jacobsville are also visited at the lonely Huron islands, remnants of a much larger mountain range.

David Wilheim

David Wilheim

David Wilheim