I just found your videos. I am enthralled by your presentations. My wife, now passed away, and I drove several hundred thousand miles in North America in the fifty+ years we were together. Observing the geology was a major part of there travels' Congratulations on your marriage. May it last for many decades. Stay curious and stay well.

Your excitement is genuinely infectious.

Thank you for this. Old Canadian Indigenous guy here. Our elders told us about the copper mining we did pre- contact. Apparently the copper mined in what is now Ontario and Michigan was traded south as far as Brazil to the south and the Yukon in the north. What is now Windsor / Detroit was as important to north /south trade a melanin ago as it is now.

It's about perspective, it's not failure to break apart.. It's success of staying together

UPDATE: Hey, there! Since uploading this video, I've had a few people point out that my "basalt" slab... may not actually be basalt. So, this is me stopping by to correct myself! While the northwest Upper Peninsula DOES contain all kinds of basalt, I likely misidentified my particular rock sample. Thanks so much to everyone who left me notes, especially Jim, who pointed out it looks more like shale!

I enjoyed your video. I was born and live in MIchigan. When I was 8, mom was told that I was going to be blind Dad owned a truck and bought a camper for it. I’ve been to these mines and all over MIchigan. I didn’t loose all of my sight. I am legally blind still living near Flint. My parents wanted me to have a visual memory of MIchigan before I lost my sight. They taught me how to and not to be afraid of traveling.

You're enthusiasm is infectious. You are obviously born to be a presenter. Keep up the good work!

My grandfather was a miner up in that area. Was in 2 cave ins and survived them both. He had enough of that and moved to Hamtramck Mi.

Try looking at the Niagara Escarpment if you hadn't already. Starts around Lake Winnebago in Wisconsin through Lake Michigan, through Michigan, Canada and into New York state.

Oh. Duuuuuude. I will say. If you happen to be within an hour from the coast of Lake Superior and hear about a thunderstorm rolling through I HIGHLY recommend finding a nice place to park on the coast and watching it!! Not while it's above your head or throwing huge waves at the coast or anything but while it's way out in the distance storming over the lake. I've never seen so many lighting strikes so fast in my life. Watching our videos of it was like watching a time-lapse!! I couldn't believe my eyes! Such an amazing yet terrifying thing to witness!

Being a native Michigander, Grand Rapids born, I loved this so much. I knew all about the copper stuff, I went to several mine tours when I was a kid with my parents to see how big the mines were, how they picked, and getting to do so ourselves and if we found any copper, the place would turn them into jewelry for us. They were owned by an indigenous family that showed off the jewelry they'd made and artifacts from the area that had been found. I still have my copper earrings in my wood box...it and visiting Sleeping Bear Dunes is one of my favorite memories from being here

Great video! It's always interesting to hear about local history. My family owns a farm in the UP of Michigan. For almost 150 years my family has found float copper in the flieds after plowing. You can litterally walk the field and pick up pieces of copper. My family has a wood barrel in the barn which has been slowly filling with copper that has been found. I remember as a kid pulling rocks out of the discs for the tractor and occasionally finding a piece of copper wedge in there.

I live on the southern shore near Marquette. Lake Superior is literally our identity around here. Thanks for the info

You should check out the "Driftless Area" if you really like the geological stuff. It's an area that was never covered by glaciers. Very beautiful region.

I was born and raised in Ontonagan County. Still have my family home at Topaz Meadows, which is 25 miles from Ontonagan. It’s an Airbnb now. My father worked in the copper mines for 33 years! Love my homeland. Hearing your excitement gave me goosebumps! I explore as much as possible every time I go back home! Thank you for sharing. There’s so much history in the UP! It’s endless. Yooper Pride!

My grandfather was born in the Keweenaw to a miner. Not only cooper was mined in this area for thousands of years by Native Americans (there is a mine site on Isle Royale, I was a park ranger there) but iron ore

Infectious excitement, smile, hopefulness. Your videos are like a calm eye in the storm that is 2020. Please keep on doing what your doing, the world can use more of this.

I'm 56 and still love learning history, whether it be rocks, the earth, pyramids or space. Nice work. Merry Christmas.

Da UP is great for geology, but if you want to see some interesting formations from the mid continent rift explore the North Shore of Lake Superior in Minnesota. Just beautiful and incredible formations. Basalt for days lol, and crystals and agate like crazy. Entire beaches of nothing but rounded pinkish basalt (I think, maybe something else lmfao). Plus, easier access to Michigan's Isle Royale, where there are many ancient Indigenous native copper mines.

When I was a kid (we're talking 60 yrs. ago now) my family used to go camping in Porcupine Mts SP near Ontonagon, so thanks loads for helping me recall some very fond memories. I remember long discussions about how to pronounce the name of that town (because we so often had to drive over there to pick up things we forgot the last time we went shopping, we sometimes referred to it as "O not again") And I also immensely enjoy your videos, they're both informative and entertaining, thanks to your sprightly nature, which not even hiccups can dim.

I love your enthusiasm. I am extremely interested in the geology of the Lake Superior area and the Midcontinent Rift so I was glad to find this video

I shared one of your videos with a dear friend and lifelong Michigander, I've lived here only 52 years, and she got so excited! So you have 2 new subscribers now. I grew up in the PNW, Eugene, Or, and my Dad was a metallurgical engineer and had worked in the Butte, MT, mines when they were underground. He had a good grounding in both geology and mineralogy, which he happily shared with us during our travels thru the PNW and the west. When we moved to the Midwest, we were amazed at this whole new geology that surrounded us. Mountains so ancient that they were now hills, or had eroded away completely, huge lakes that are basically freshwater seas, the Canadian Shield, the mid continental rift and Niagara Falls. The Sudbury crater is fascinating, but Charity Shoals in Lake Ontario might be the remnants of a meteor strike and the Canadians may have found a meteor crater in Lake Huron! This is all so exciting. I follow Washington State geology with Dr. Nick Zentner's at Central Washington University, his lectures rock! Literally. And I am thrilled to have found your channel. Your enthusiasm for the deep history of our planet is contagious and the Great Lakes geology is fascinating! You might not be covering the huge geological stories, but yours are the small stories, the human tales of our species on this planet. The little bits of history that get forgotten... I did enjoy the 3 part video in Washington State. My Dad was born and raised in Tacoma, his playground was the Puget Sound; and he had a lifelong fascination with the Scab lands in eastern Washington. I wish he was still here to share in your video adventures, he would have enjoyed them so much! Thank you.

Love the video! Well done!! I am about 400 miles from Lake Superior. ROAD TRIP!

I used to live on the north shore of Lake Superior. I spent my childhood running along the rocks on the shore near Grand Marais. :-)

I love how passionate you are about the geology here! It's easy to take for granted what we don't see beneath our feet.

Very interesting video. I live in thunder bay ontario and am a geotechical/environmental driller. We were drilling near the base of the norwester mountains in thunder bay and the geologist was explaining how they were formed by volcanic eruptions. you could see clear as day the change in rock in the cores from jet black bassalt to a beautiful slate. Glad I came across your video and learned more about the scale of what was happening around that time

The rest of us will let you keep your Michigan card despite not realizing that Lake Superior is a major shipping route, because they stopped playing Gordon Lightfoot's "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" on the radio in heavy rotation long before you were born. And by the time you would've been old enough to be paying close attention to song lyrics, it would mainly be heard on the oldies stations.

I’m a Michigander !!! So happy people come to visit here and not run the the tropics !

I have heard ‘rumors’ that Minoans came from the Area of Minos/Italy to mine this valuable copper?!?? A video about any insight that you have on this subject would be very cool!?!!! MANY THANKS! You are GREAT!✨⭐️

Entertaining video. I live in Ontonagon County and have old mine shafts on my property. Lots of tailings or poor rock left behind. Easy to find copper in my back yard . Cheers!

I ran across your channel and always love supporting other channels creating michigan content as well. love your channel.

You are a tonic for these difficult times. AND I'm learning some geology, which is great, so thank you!

Did you visit the Ontonagon Boulder? Next time also visit Kitch-iti-Kipi. It looks to be about 10 ft deep because the water is crystal clear, but it is very very deep and the fish you see are huge. Also, grab a pastie while in the UP. The recipe was brought to Michigan by the Cornish miner's wives who made the pasties with a thick rolled edge so that the miners could hold on to the pasties with their dirty hands and then throw that piece away. The Michigan recipe has rutabagas' which is slightly different than most recipes.

I come from a small town right in the center of North America, Stonewall, Manitoba, Canada. A lot of geological research occurred both in this town and the surrounding area. About 450 million years ago, the limestone quarries of Stonewall were the reefs on the coast line of what we now call the Canadian Shield in what we call the Ordovician Sea. If you look at the map of the world at this time, it is barely recognizable. A lot of the deep geological layers in western Canada are named after the points where those layers are exposed at the surface near where I came from. Hard to imagine this inland area was once an ocean coastline. The line where North America almost split is just south of the very large and very old Canadia Shield, which has some rocks dated to over 4 billion years old, not the oldest, but close.

About six years ago I read that research has determined that much of the ancient copper tools and other items found in the Mediterranean have element content linking them to Lake Superior copper. This means that trade between the two areas occurred long before European explorers discovered the North American continent. We just keep discovering new facts about our history and origins.

I have a few Michigan copper nuggets I use to make pendants. Really gorgeous stuff.

Yes, visit the place. It's everything she talked about. Winter? ski or snowmobile; Summer: walk along the park's hiking trails; Pure Michigan. Get a lesson in geology along with your vacation.

Stumbled on your site - while surfing videos about the New Madrid Earthquake. Learned alot of new things watching your video. You're a lot more energetic & excited about sharing information - than the professors presenting their findings about the New Madrid Earthquakes. My 70 year old attention span with the professors wavered by the steady drone of their presentations. Your presentation activated my childhood curiousity. Don't stop making more videos! HAPPY, HAPPY - JOY, JOY!

We are still coming out of the last ice age. The last impact of the glaciers on the Great Lakes was 4,500 years ago. The land of Michigan is still rebounding from the weight of all the ice of the glaciers. Lake Michigan used to drain south using what is now the Wabash River in Indiana. Lake Huron drained to the north east eventually flowing through Lake Nipissing down past Ottawa eventually being discharged into the St. Lawrence River at Montreal.

I've only made a handful of trucks to the upper peninsula I really loved visiting pictured rocks but I definitely need to make it up to copper harbor! Thanks for all of the great videos of such a beautiful state

Wow I’m obsessed with your videos! As someone who loves geology and loves Michigan, your channel is such a treat!

go to whitefish point and go all the way to the actual point on the beach. that spot is just awe inspiring.

I'm a born Michigander who was transplanted to Virginia after getting married. I love your take on Michigan history. Since retirement, I've been able to polish up some of the Petosky stones. I picked up when visiting Lake Michigan. They are beautiful and interesting! So I will continue to watch your Michigan videos & recommend them to my friends and family. ps I need to spend some time at Lake Superior, too. 😊

As an HVAC contractor for the past 40 years copper is very close to me, and I appreciate the metal as it allows me to make a good living. Recently I received a 5lb copper bar made of UP copper as a Christmas gift, I will cherish it for the rest of my life! All things UP are fascinating thanks partly to your way of sharing this information.

I saw where the "X" on the map was, and I fist-pumped. I was born in Ontonagon, but moved away as a kid. Thanks for the concise geology lesson and the walk down memory lane. Definitely a beautiful area.

I know of a spot in that area where there's a small rock out cropping with a vein of native copper. It's green in color like a corroded penny. I scratched it with my multi tool and it looked like a freshly minted penny inside. If you're looking for something else interesting off the beaten path in Michigan check out Mystery Valley in Posen Mi.

When I first heard about the rift it blew my mind too. What's really amazing is the north shore of Superior really has a lot of amazing scenery related to the 1.1 billion year failed rift. We did the north shore circle tour in 2008. Pretty much every Ontario provincial park on the Superior circle tour has something cool related to the geology.

Love your videos! I live 3.5 miles south of Lake Supirior and it is AMAZING!

I've sent this to several friends, including some former students who were enrolled in my seismology class. Thanks!

It's also seen in a buried under sand form with Montcalm County being lifted 300-400 feet above Gratiot or Newaygo Counties on the other side with buried sandstone filled aquifers from the Jordan Formation. As a result, water occasionally just gushes out from places in the Rift Valley which extends in an upside-down u shape from Kansas to SE Michigan

I can't get over how beautiful the rocks were in that handful at 2:28!

Thanks for giving us a way to continue learning from you post sci-show.

I wouldn’t consider Lake Superior a fail on any level. sheeesh😢

Alexis, you are delightful...the best thing to come out of Michigan since I-75! (spoken by a buckeye, of course) I really hope you share your enthusiasm with school kids, or maybe as a park naturalist. Keep up the great work

Michigan My Michigan...You Are Special.

Very interesting geology of the Great Lakes that I was not aware of ... "You should try showing the astounding copper finds as well as the largest solid piece of copper they found!

You’re so peppy! Kids would love to be taught by you. I hope you’re a teacher. Love your explanation.

Your smile and enthusiasm are so intoxicating!

Great video! Thanks for making and uploading!

Basalt would be much harder to scratch than Shale since Iron is a component of the former and Aluminum in the second. As to a nice getaway from the UP, which sounds like a wonderful place to live, try going down the Chippewa River to the Mississippi River and what is probably lower half of that "Great Failure" . Just imagine all the different sights and sounds you could explore along the way. Keep up the Great Stories and never loose your enthusiasm.

Great videos. Keep them coming. Thanks.

I was just in the U.P.! It's awesome to learn more about the places I was visiting. Especially the copper mines. I toured the Delaware copper mine only a few days ago!

The great Gitche Gumee is one of my favorite places on the planet.

Ive recently started studying Geology as a hobby. Im Native Indigenous of a tribe. Thank you for podcast! Im a new subscriber!

Did you know that as you drive around lake Superior you can actually notice the curvature of the earth. Simply because one side is lower than the other side I think. It is actually a really cool drive. Also the north side is sooo much colder.

Haha cool video. I was born on the north side of Superior. Such a cool lake. I took my kayak out on it last summer. I found an entire beach of basalt pebbles in a small cove, so awesome. There is an abandoned silver mine on the Canadian side that is now full of water. It was the worlds largest silver mine at one time. I didnt know about the copper down south, that is neat!

Alesis, you are the very BEST story teller I've ever heard. All your reports about Michigan capture my imagination.

Alexis, I just discovered your videos and I find them amazing. GREAT JOB!!!

When he was quite young I showed my nephew some small mineral and rock samples I had collected over the years. I also bought him some mineral and rock sample collections. The samples were small and not of the best quality but were useful in learning about different minerals and rocks. He's now a volcanologist/geologist whi says his interest was spareked by those small samples I gave him. Watching this video, I wonder how many youngsters watching it will become geologists or volcanologists because of this video? Well done and well presented.

This video is GOLD!! Thank you so much for putting a lot of research in your content.

And here I thought the biggest failure in Michigan was the Detroit Lions. Edit: having access to “native” metals was a huge advantage to those lucky enough to find them. They don’t need to be refined and can immediately be shaped into tools using cold forging techniques, aka banging on it with a rock. This was also the case with deposits of meteoric iron. Unlike the regular iron ore found on Earth, the iron found in meteors doesn’t need to be smelted into useable iron. This made iron tools available far earlier than technology allowed.

Years (decades!) ago backpacking Isle Royale I saw a native pit copper mine. It was noted in the trail guide and easy to find.

You are great. Your passion for this stuff comes through and that is what us humans like. The basalt is "miles thick... I mean MILES!" If you aren't already you would make a great school teacher. Keep it up!

You should visit Black River Harbor. There's a nice waterfall trail (approximately 5 miles long) that goes from Copper Peak to Lake Superior. I'd love to see your take on the geology of Great Conglomerate Falls (one of the waterfalls on the trail) because while I've read everything I can about Conglomerate, there actually isn't that much information about that rock formation that's readily available. Black River Harbor is not that far from Ontonogan

Recently came across your channel. Absolutely love your videos. I love all the history and information!! Great job. I look forward to watching all your videos!!

These are fun videos!! I’m sharing them with others because I’m fascinated by the fun facts you pull out of our home here in the UP.

I love geology. plate tectonics is my fav.

I liked this a lot. Learned more than I already knew from visiting that area many times. Thanks!

Love your enthusiasm and genuine excitement ☺️

These kinda videos are definitely interesting to me! I love this kind of content, and your enthusiasm and delight brings me a great deal of joy which is sorely needed at the present historical moment. I'm gonna go send this to all of my friends who like science!

Awesome video! Really liked your enthusiasm and presentation.

Congratulations Alexis on your anniversary this was a good follow up to your Sudbury Asteriod episode.

Haha, in another video, you mentioned how bad you were at finding agates... At 2:30 when you're pulling a random handful of rocks up, the bottom right one sure looks like an agate to me :P Haha, didn't know Lake Superior was a major shipping channel? You should visit Duluth, MN some time, see the ore docks, and the freighters coming and going. 2/3rds of domestically produced iron comes from Minnesota, and is shipped out over Lake Superior. Heck, come visit the iron mines! Hull Rust in Hibbing, MN is the 3rd largest man-made hole in the ground. You can also visit the Tower Sudan mine, one of the few remaining underground mines, ride the original equipment down. They ran physics experiments down there for a few decades, trying to find evidence of neutrinos, that ended a couple years ago, though.

I'd heard that the Mississippi River flows through a failed continental fault zone from when Africa split with the Americas. I wonder if the previous failure (and miles of basalt) prevented the split from happening in the same place.

Thank you for this video. The story is fascinating. Keep on rockin'.

Just discovered your channel & watched 3 of your videos. Love the UP Lake Superior area and in particular exploring the Keweenaw.

Wow!!! This was such an interesting video on a topic that, at first, kinda seems like "so what that's what plate tectonics do." BUT zooming in on a small part of a REALLY big event and just like... watching what happens... really puts into perspective how much has happened on this planet in comparison to how little we see in our lifetime... (insert small existential crisis here) But OH MY GOSH you just exude passion for science and learning with every word you say in this video! I honestly can't help but smile and laugh along with you. Both of which are a nice spark of joy during the general chaos of 2020. Last new idea I swear, just noticed the sources in the description. A+ for that.

Awesome Video, thanks for making it. I genuinely enjoyed it.

This is fascinating. You present it in a very understandable manner. Thank you. I would love to hear more of your expertise and knowledge.

You might consider looking into the Michigan Basin, which is responsible for gypsum mines near Grand Rapids, oil deposits/wells in the northern Lower Peninsula, and the salt deposits under Detroit, among other things.

I grew up in the area, I LOVE that you have pronounced everything CORRECTLY.. thank you nd keep up the great work.

Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park is absolutely incredible. It is one of our favorite places in Michigan to visit. The lakefront at Union Bay campground is very interesting, especially the view from above.

Great video. I very much enjoyed it. Learned something new.

I love these videos and hope to see you make more. Always nice learning more about my home state! And hello from down here in Detroit!

Really wish we had known this stuff 15 yes ago when we were traveling to MI for college. Good now too. Love it. Thanks.

This was interesting and I must thank you for your infectious exuberance. Well done! 😀

They are interesting. Love your enthusiasm!

So glad I ran across your channel!

Thank you for great intro to the subject

This was really cool to watch. I live in the UP about 3 miles from Lake Superior.