Leave No Stone Unturned
Calling all rockhounds! Whether you are a hard-core rock hunter or casual gatherer, the Art Coast® is the perfect place for rockhounding. With miles of sandy beaches to explore, you can spend hours hunting for your favorite rocks. All you need is a bucket, patience, and an eagle eye to find new treasures for your collection.
What You Can Find
From fossils to corals and more, these are just a few rocks you can locate along the Saugatuck/Douglas lakeshore.
Crinoids
These fossils—from a distant relative of the starfish—look like small disks and often have a hole through them. Also known as Luckystones, Crinoids are abundant in the area and are popular for handmade jewelry.
Corals
You’ll have no trouble spotting coral along Art Coast beaches. Favosites, known as Honeycomb Corals, are made of closely grouped calcitic tubes that resemble honeycomb. Their pattern is like a smaller, lacier version of a Petoskey Stone.
Be on the lookout for Halysites, a fossilized coral with a structure similar to interlocking strings of tiny chairs. You can also spot Rugosas, or “horn corals,” with unique, easy-to-identify horn-like shapes.
Fossiliferous Limestone
These stones are a conglomerate of fossils, including mollusk shells, crinoids, and other creatures. Don’t be deterred by their mundane appearance. This rock can be a showstopper once you cut and polish it.
Septarian Nodules
Also known as “lightning stones” or “turtle stones,” these unique rocks are common on beaches along Lake Michigan. Formed from iron-rich mud and clay that cracked and filled with calcite, the stones have a lightening-like pattern of lighter-colored lines.
Beach Glass
These smooth bits of ceramic and slag come from manufactured materials, but with their translucence and variety of colors, beach glass can be a beautiful addition to your collection.
Where to Go
While Saugatuck is home to many beautiful and popular beaches, such as Oval Beach and the Saugatuck Dunes State Park, a few of our lesser-known strips of sand are best for rockhounding. Locals recommend Pier Cove Beach in Allegan County, just south of Saugatuck in Fennville. Here, you can find dark black basalt, stripped sandstone, freckled granite, bright limestone, and Septarian Nodules.
Just a mile south of Pier Cove is West Side County Park. Unakite, a metamorphic rock of altered granite, is a common find at this beach. Look for telltale splotches of pink feldspar and green epidote to locate it.
How to Hunt (Responsibly)
To start, look for less popular locations so there is less competition. You’ll also want to avoid maintained beaches because stones may be removed as part of cleaning (but that doesn’t mean you can’t be on the lookout during a casual day at the beach!).
While it may seem ideal to go rockhounding on a beautiful sunny day, the best time to hunt is after a wind or rain storm. Waves on the lake move stones and push them up onto the shoreline. And if it’s been raining, it is even easier to identify stones when wet.
Please remember that the number of rocks you can collect from state parks is limited to 25 lbs. We also recommend carrying a garbage bag while you’re out rockhounding to dispose of litter you find along the shore.
