Agate hunting is a renown Humboldt County sport. Go to a beach any day of the week, any month of the year and you’ll see the hunters — people of all ages bent over like myopic crones or crawling on ...

In a full day's search on the last day of March, Mike Jacobs of Monticello and I found 121 agates. That seemed a lot to an amateur like me, whose agate hunting has been largely confined to looking ...

It takes a trained and disciplined eye to find some of nature's hidden treasures. After more than 50 years' experience, mine is pretty good at finding morel mushrooms, which have a knack for ...

The beaches at Grand Marais are excellent hunting grounds for the ancient Lake Superior agate, a semi-precious stone made up of concentric circles of microcrystaline quartz reddened by iron. Here’s ...

The annual agate and mineral show this weekend is adding star power to its lineup this year with an exhibit of some of the best known Lake Superior agates in the world. The Cuyuna Agate & Mineral Show ...

Tom Woodden likes to compare hunting for Fairburn agates to trout fishing. “It’s like reeling in that big one,” said Woodden, who is known to have one of the world’s largest Fairburn agate collections ...

GRAND MARAIS, Minn. — Among the many pastimes popular in Minnesota is agate hunting -- scanning the shores of Lake Superior for the official state gemstone. Relatively easy to find in the summer when ...

Along with the ancient volcanic gems they seek, Oregon’s agate-hunters can be spotted year-round across the state’s shores and watersheds. “Only look right in front of you,” Seana Sutton said, her ...

DULUTH — About 1.1 billion years ago here, fissures opened in the surface of the earth, depositing lakes of molten rock near what would eventually be the Twin Ports and Lake Superior. This is ...

HOLDING TOWNSHIP, Minn. — Ed Opatz spotted the agate first. Look for it, he encouraged. It's got purple bands. Red bands. A perfect example. Four of us stood in a tight circle, but only Opatz saw the ...

Rockhounds will find agate, minerals and rocks from around the world all close at home. The show offers an opportunity to look at agates from across the globe or buy and trade stones. Vendors provide ...

Agates are rocks. More specifically, they’re a form of chalcedony typically semi-transparent to translucent. Size-wise, more often than not, agates range somewhere between a jelly bean and a ...