
Petoskey stone - curtis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petoskey_stone
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jcrabtr
Fun fact: Claude Shannon, father of information theory, was born in Petoskey,
MI [0]. He grew up not far away in Gaylord, MI, where you can now visit Claude
Shannon park [1].

[0]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Shannon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Shannon)

[1]: [http://www.gaylordmichigan.net/member-37/claude-shannon-
park...](http://www.gaylordmichigan.net/member-37/claude-shannon-
park-329.html)

~~~
Isamu
See, you can bring up information theory in almost any context.

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fdavison
By brother collected these as a kid living in Charlevoix and threw a bunch
into Lake Champlain, nearly a thousand miles away, in the hopes of trolling
some future geologist.

My brother does stuff like that.

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kelchm
This is fantastic.

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acidburnNSA
I grew up in the small town of Petoskey, MI. You can indeed just walk down the
shores of Lake Michigan and find these. People at local camps come and gather
them one day and then spend the rest of their vacation polishing them in rock
polishing stations and fashioning them into jewelry and stuff. All the gift
shops sell Petoskey stone paper weights, knives, boxes, necklaces, Michigan-
shaped Petoskey stones, you name it!

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losteverything
Is the Mole Hole still around.

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acidburnNSA
Woah, random! I loved that place. The Petoskey location closed but they're
operating in Sault Ste. Marie [1].

[1]
[https://www.themoleholeonline.com/history/](https://www.themoleholeonline.com/history/)

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losteverything
There was one in Barnegat Light, NJ - and i assumed it was named after the
entrance in Petoskey

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xanthineai
All the way from Traverse City to Charlevoix is, indeed, very good and never
crowded. Storms are good for stirring up the aluvial deposits to reveal new
finds. Rubber boots will help if the temperature is significantly below
freezing. Otherwise, I prefer barefoot with some local microbrews. The biggest
one I found, about the size of an american football, was the one I stepped on.
:)

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jphillipsio
I was there and found a few on Saturday. I try to make it to Petoskey at least
once per year. Looking for these is one of my favorite ways to spend an
afternoon.

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m12k
They look like organically grown voronoi diagrams -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voronoi_diagram](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voronoi_diagram)

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kainolophobia
My Mother has a bit of a fascination with these, going so far as to put a
"rock shop" in her garage.

Here's a blurry image of one that she gave me (after I wore down the polish a
bit). [http://i.imgur.com/IhvgT.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/IhvgT.jpg)

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cpr
Serendipity! Just looking at a large one last night, here at my wife's parents
house in Boyne City, found decades ago. (My mother in law grew up here.)

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jcrabtr
The craft fair in Boyne over the 4th of July is a good place to buy trinkets
made with Petoskey stones like the ones in the shape of the state that someone
else mentioned. We didn't make it there this summer, but stop by Kilwin's and
Lake Street Deli for me!

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cpr
Lake Street Deli is amazing, as is the Boyne City Bakery, run by a world class
French baker.

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jlamberts
We always used to go up to Torch Lake during summer when I was a kid.
Collected a bunch of these. The easiest way to find them is to bring some
water with you and go for a walk on a rocky road, and pour the water on likely
rocks. The water makes the pattern much clearer and fewer people look for them
on the roads.

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chime
Well this was a serendipitous post! My wedding anniversary is coming up and I
wasn't sure what to get my wife. Thanks to this, I looked up 'Petoskey stone'
on Amazon and found a pretty necklace for sale. Someday I'd love to visit
Michigan and buy matching earrings/bracelet in person.

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luckroy
My grandparents retired on the eastern shore of the Leelanau peninsula, very
near the town where the recently discovered 93 pound stone was found. We would
walk the shoreline after a fresh rain to find these. They kept buckets full of
them that they would give away to whomever wanted them.

I never realized how unique the stones were until I was in my 20s and
discovered most people know nothing about them. The buckets are long gone and
one of my biggest regrets is not having claimed any before my grandparents
moved back down to southeast MI.

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jlrbuellv
The even cooler part of these stones is that they often look totally plain
when dried out, because the white coral pattern blends into the light gray of
the stone. If you're walking the beach looking for them, you might have to
pick up likely looking candidates and dip them in the water to darken the gray
parts of the stone; every time is like a little lottery that you might win.

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toomanybeersies
I've always found it fascinating collecting fossils.

Of course the rock is millions of years old, but the fact that it has the
shape of a shell embedded in it from millions of years ago just makes the fact
so much more real.

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tjr225
My Grandmother used to take me hiking along the northern shores of the lower
peninsula of Michigan in search of these stones.

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geoffbrown2014
Spent many summers up at Glen Lake as a kid sanding and polishing these
stones. Lots of fun.

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sus_007
Why a Wiki page of a stone on the front page of HN ?

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mherdeg
Probably because yesterday on reddit, this article was trending:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/6p1iwi/til_a...](https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/6p1iwi/til_a_michigan_rock_collector_found_an_impressive/)

("TIL A Michigan rock collector found an impressive 93 lb. Petoskey stone in
Lake Michigan in 2015, only to have it promptly confiscated by authorities.
The stone violated a Michigan law that states no more than 25 pounds of rocks
or minerals can be taken from the Great Lakes per year.")

I'm guessing that someone reading that reddit post found the phenomenon
interesting and submitted its Wikipedia page to news.ycombinator.

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curtis
That is exactly right. I'd never heard of Petoskey stones before, found them
pretty interesting, and I figured many people on HN would think the same.

~~~
taylorbuley
I'll send you one if you'd like to see one in person. DM me at @taylorbuley

