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August 29, 1999HugeRockhound unearths massive Petoskey stone at Sleeping BearBy MARJORY RAYMERRecord-Eagle staff writer EMPIRE - Petoskey stone just isn't an adequate description for the monster rock Chuck Schnake discovered at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. Try Petoskey BOULDER. The massive Petoskey stone measures 40 inches long by 20 inches deep. Its weight is uncertain, but probably tips the scales at between 1,000 and 2,000 pounds. "It's the largest rock that I've seen in these parts that contains fossils," said Neal Bullington, a naturalist and chief of interpretation for the national park. "It is unusual to find rocks that big." And now, the rockhound who found it is on a quest to find out if it is the biggest state stone. Schnake, 68, who owned a public relations firm in Tulsa, Okla., before retiring three years ago, hunts the roadsides looking for Petoskey stones during his summers in Leland. The people back home in Sarasota, Fla., find them interesting. "I figure you gotta have a hobby," Schnake explained. Most of his finds are egg- or potato-sized. This stone first caught Schnake's eye last September along a dead-end road north of The Homestead resort. Schnake recognized the Petoskey stone's telltale circular design made from fossilized coral in a dinner plate-sized piece of rock protruding from the ground. He returned a couple of days later with a shovel. "The more I uncovered it, the bigger the rock got," Schnake said. Before him stretched more than three feet of unpolished Petoskey stone. Not that he could do anything with it. It was too big for him to even attempt to move. Plus his rock was technically on park property, and therefore illegal to take. Schnake informed the National Park Service, and that got the rock rolling, so to speak. Park employees used a tractor to dig up the fossil and limestone rock, which went on display earlier about a month ago at the Lake Michigan overlook on the Pierce Stocking Drive off M-109 near Empire. The stone's story started about 350 million years ago, though. That's when the extinct coral, Hexagonaria percarinata, which gives Petoskey stones their unique circular patterns, lived in a tropical shallow sea of water that stretched across what is now the United States in the time before dinosaurs even existed. The rock made its home in northern Michigan just recently, said Kathy Benison, a geology professor at Central Michigan University. Recently translates into about 11,000 years ago in archaelogical terms. That's when glaciers picked up pieces of the main deposits in the Upper Peninsula near Manistique and eventually dumped them in the northern Lower Peninsula. No one was able to tell Schnake whether his stone, which he has named Pete, is the biggest ever to be found. So, he set out for the stone's namesake - the city of Petoskey. Petoskey stone actually is a regional term, not used in the rest of the United States, Benison said. The stones got the name because of the great number that wash up on the shore in Petoskey. Schnake asked around town: What's the biggest Petoskey stone you've ever seen? He ended up at City Hall where, he was told, the city's prized stone is on display. He described it as the size of a "half-bushel." "The one I found is four or five times bigger than that," he said. Next, he called the newspaper. He figured he'd never find out if it was the "biggest Petoskey stone in captivity" if no one even knew it existed. Benison acknowledged she's never found a Petoskey stone that big. But, no, she says, it is not the biggest. "That size is large for this area, but it is not particularly large for a Petoskey stone," she said. "(Petoskey stones) formed from coral that became fossilized. They were a colonial type of coral. If you think about coral reefs, you can imagine how big Petoskey stones can get. We just don't find that up here because the rocks were broken up by the glaciers." More sizable chunks of Petoskey stone are common in the Upper Peninsula, she said. Even so, Schnake has dreams for Pete. Not that he wants to throw stones or anything, but Schnake believes his rock deserves better placement. "If it is the biggest - or even a big one - it ought to be at the state Capitol," Schnake said. "I think they have underwhelmed it by putting it where it is." So, he figures he'll start making a state Capitol issue out of his find. "I've got nothing else to do," he said. |
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