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Keweenaw
The Keweenaw Peninsula ( , sometimes locally ) is the northernmost part of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. It projects into Lake Superior and was the site of the first copper boom in the United States, leading to its moniker of "Copper Country." As of the 2000 census, its population was roughly 43,200. Its major industries are now logging and tourism, as well as jobs related to Michigan Technological University and Finlandia University. Geology The peninsula measures about 150 miles in length and about 50 miles in width at its base. The ancient lava flows of the Keweenaw Peninsula were produced during the Mesoproterozoic Era as a part of the Midcontinent Rift between 1.096 and 1.087 billion years ago. This volcanic activity produced the only strata on Earth where large-scale economically recoverable 97 percent pure native copper is found. Much of the native copper found in the Keweenaw comes in either the form of cavity fillings on lava flow surfaces, which has a ”lacy” consist ...
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Brockway Mountain Drive
Brockway Mountain Drive is an scenic roadway just west of Copper Harbor in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in the United States. Drivers can access the road from State Highway M-26 on either end near Eagle Harbor to the west or Copper Harbor to the east in the Keweenaw Peninsula. The drive runs along the ridge of Brockway Mountain on the Keweenaw Fault and climbs to above sea level, above the surface of Lake Superior. Several viewpoints along the route allow for panoramas of Copper Harbor, Lake Superior, and undeveloped woodland. On a clear day, Isle Royale is visible approximately in distance from the top of the mountain. Brockway Mountain was named for Daniel D. Brockway, one of the pioneer residents of the area. The road was constructed by the county road commission with funding through Depression-era work programs in 1933. It was briefly used as a connection for the parallel state highway after it opened. Since it opened, Brockway Mountain Drive has been recognized n ...
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Hancock, Michigan
Hancock is a city in Houghton County, Michigan, Houghton County in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is across the Keweenaw Waterway from the city of Houghton, Michigan, Houghton on the Keweenaw Peninsula. The population was 4,634 at the 2010 United States census, 2010 census. The Weather Channel has consistently ranked Hancock as the third-snowiest city in the U.S. Hancock was named after United States Founding Fathers, U.S. Founding Father John Hancock. History The story of Hancock began during the summers of 1847 and 1848, when a small group of Prospecting, prospectors laboring on a rugged hillside (later named Quincy Hill) discovered a sequence of prehistoric Ojibwe copper mining pits, stretching out for 100 feet along the local Amygdule, amygdaloid lode. Upon inspecting one, they realized that the Native Americans were able to take copper in small quantities through these pits. The discovery formed the basis upon which the Quincy Mining Company was created in October 1848, un ...
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Keweenaw Waterway
The Keweenaw Waterway is a partly natural, partly artificial waterway which cuts across the Keweenaw Peninsula of Michigan; it separates Copper Island from the mainland. Parts of the waterway are variously known as the Keweenaw Waterway, Portage Canal, Portage Lake Canal, Portage River, Lily Pond, Torch Lake, and Portage Lake. The waterway connects to Lake Superior at its north and south entries (upper and lower portage entry lighthouses), with sections known as Portage Lake and Torch Lake in between. The primary tributary to Portage Lake is the Sturgeon River. History The waterway was dredged in the 1860s, extending a small river previously used by natives for transportation and fishing. The effort was a joint venture between the United States government and several mining corporations. Legislation for construction of the canal was passed in 1861. This legislation created the Portage Lake & Lake Superior Canal Co. The company began construction of the canal in September 1868 ...
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Upper Peninsula Of Michigan
The Upper Peninsula of Michigan – also known as Upper Michigan or colloquially the U.P. – is the northern and more elevated of the two major landmasses that make up the U.S. state of Michigan; it is separated from the Lower Peninsula by the Straits of Mackinac. It is bounded primarily by Lake Superior to the north, separated from the Canadian province of Ontario at the east end by the St. Marys River, and flanked by Lake Huron and Lake Michigan along much of its south. Although the peninsula extends as a geographic feature into the state of Wisconsin, the state boundary follows the Montreal and Menominee rivers and a line connecting them. First inhabited by Algonquian-speaking native American tribes, the area was explored by French colonists, then occupied by British forces, before being ceded to the newly established United States in the late 18th century. After being assigned to various territorial jurisdictions, it was granted to the newly formed state of Michigan as ...
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Copper Island
Copper Island is a local name given to the northern part of the Keweenaw Peninsula (projecting northeastward into Lake Superior at the western end of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, United States of America), separated from the rest of the Keweenaw Peninsula by Portage Lake and the Keweenaw Waterway. Geography The area was "isolated" by dredging in 1859 and construction in the 1860s of a ship canal across an isthmus of the Keweenaw Peninsula from Portage Lake—on the east side of the Keweenaw Peninsula—to Lake Superior on the west. The ship canal is wide and deep. The resulting "island" was called ''Kuparisaari'' (meaning "Copper Island") by Finnish, Irish, and French/French Canadian settlers in the area. However, neither the United States Geological Survey nor the state of Michigan identify this area as an island or use this name. Isle Royale is the largest naturally isolated island in Lake Superior; considered as an island, Copper Island would be the largest, with ...
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Houghton, Michigan
Houghton (; ) is the largest city and seat of government of Houghton County in the U.S. state of Michigan. Located on the Keweenaw Peninsula, Houghton is the largest city in the Copper Country region. It is the fifth-largest city in the Upper Peninsula, with a population of 8,386 at the 2020 census. Houghton is the principal city of the Houghton micropolitan area, which includes all of Houghton and Keweenaw County. The city of Houghton and the county were named after Douglass Houghton, an American geologist and physician, primarily known for his exploration of the Keweenaw Peninsula. Houghton has been listed as one of the "100 Best Small Towns in America" despite it being considered a city. Houghton is home to Michigan Technological University, a public research college founded in 1885. Michigan Tech hosts a yearly Winter Carnival in February, drawing thousands of visitors from around the world. History Native Americans mined copper in and around what would later be ...
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Michigan Technological University
Michigan Technological University (Michigan Tech, MTU, or simply Tech) is a public research university in Houghton, Michigan, founded in 1885 as the Michigan Mining School, the first post-secondary institution in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Michigan Tech is one of the eight research universities in the State of Michigan and is classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activity". There are 12 research areas including Space Sciences, Electronics, Ecosystems, Energy, Health, Ocean Sciences, and Robotics. There are 18 research centers on and off campus including the Michigan Tech Research Institute. The university is governed by an eight-member board of trustees whose members are appointed by the governor of Michigan and confirmed by the Michigan Senate. The university comprises five colleges and schools: the College of Engineering, the College of Computing, the College of Sciences and Arts, the College of Business, and the College of Forest Resources and ...
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Copper Country
The Copper Country is an area in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in the United States, including Keweenaw County, Michigan, Houghton, Baraga and Ontonagon counties as well as part of Marquette County. The area is so named as copper mining was prevalent there from 1845 until the late 1960s, with one mine (the White Pine mine) continuing through 1995. In its heyday in the latter half of the 19th century and the early 20th century, the area was the world's greatest producer of copper. Native copper Copper Country is highly unusual among mining districts in that the copper mined was predominantly in its elemental ("native") form, rather than in the form of compounds (mostly oxides and sulfides) that form the basis of the copper ore at almost every other copper-mining district. History Native Americans mined copper from small pits as early as 3000 B.C. on this peninsula surrounded by the waters of Lake Superior. Douglass Houghton, the State Geologist of Michigan in the mid 18 ...
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Midcontinent Rift
The Midcontinent Rift System (MRS) or Keweenawan Rift is a long geological rift in the center of the North America, North American continent and south-central part of the North American plate. It formed when the continent's core, the North American craton, began to split apart during the Mesoproterozoic era of the Precambrian, about 1.1 billion years ago. aulacogen, The rift failed, leaving behind thick layers of igneous rock that are exposed in its northern reaches, but buried beneath later sedimentary formations along most of its western and eastern arms. Those arms meet at Lake Superior, which is contained within the rift valley. The lake's North Shore (Lake Superior), north shore in Ontario and Minnesota defines the northern arc of the rift. From the lake, the rift's eastern arm trends south to central lower Michigan, and possibly into Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Alabama. The western arm runs from Lake Superior southwest through portions of Wisconsin, Minneso ...
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Isle Royale
Isle Royale National Park is an American national park consisting of Isle Royale – known as Minong to the native Ojibwe – along with more than 400 small adjacent islands and the surrounding waters of Lake Superior, in the state of Michigan. Isle Royale is long and wide, with an area of , making it the fourth-largest lake island in the world. In addition, it is the largest natural island in Lake Superior, the second-largest island in the Great Lakes (after Manitoulin Island), the third-largest in the contiguous United States (after Long Island and Padre Island), and the 33rd-largest island in the United States. Isle Royale National Park was established on April 3, 1940, then additionally protected from development by wilderness area designation in 1976, declared a UNESCO International Biosphere Reserve in 1980, and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2019 as the Minong Traditional Cultural Property. The park covers , with of land and of surroundin ...
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Keweenaw Fault
The Keweenaw Fault is a reverse fault that bisects the Keweenaw Peninsula of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The fault thrusts lava flows of the Midcontinent Rift System onto sedimentary rocks of the Jacobsville Sandstone. The fault is part of the inversion of the Midcontinent Rift where a region that had previously undergone extension experienced significant contraction. This contraction occurred during the final stages of the Grenvillian orogeny. The Keweenaw Peninsula, itself, is the southeastern side of a large syncline beneath Lake Superior. The northwestern side forms Isle Royale. The fault is more than long and extends from the tip of the Keweenaw Peninsula in the northeast to a termination near the Michigan-Wisconsin border in the southeast. The fault is most likely younger than the Jacobsville Formation and the Devonian Period. A seismic event in 1906 claimed to be an earthquake has been attributed to a rock burst, as the area has been significantly mined. The Natural ...
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Native Copper
Native copper is an uncombined form of copper that occurs as a natural mineral. Copper is one of the few metallic elements to occur in native form, although it most commonly occurs in oxidized states and mixed with other elements. Native copper was an important ore of copper in historic times and was used by pre-historic peoples. Native copper occurs rarely as isometric cubic and octahedral crystals, but more typically as irregular masses and fracture fillings. It has a reddish, orangish, and/or brownish color on fresh surfaces, but typically is weathered and coated with a green tarnish of copper(II) carbonate (also known as patina or verdigris). Its specific gravity is 8.9 and its hardness is 2.5–3. The mines of the Keweenaw native copper deposits of Upper Michigan were major copper producers in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and are the largest deposits of native copper in the world. (Web archive; click cancel when it asks for authentication.) Native Americans mined ...
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