Quite a few years back, at the Tucson Gem & Mineral shows, I, as usual, checked in with my friend Ken Flood. Ken owns Keweenaw Gem & Gifts in Houghton. We go back a long way, and he knows I enjoy making jewelry from the rare and unusual Rocks & Minerals from the Keweenaw Peninsula.

Ken sells multiple Keweenaw products that his business manufactures. Ken said he had something special for me to look at. He produced a quantity of Float Copper Cabochons with beautiful Quartz inclusions. I have never seen such unusual Float Copper. He has a special wire saw that he uses to cut Float Copper. You need this special saw, as pure Copper really gums up the normal Lapidary saws. Normal Lapidary saw blades produce so much heat they tend to warp.

Usually Float Copper pure native copper, but in these special pieces it contained Quartz; some gorgeous Crystals. It was a surprise when to find this Quartz in the copper.

For those that do not know, Float Copper is copper that was ripped from copper-bearing basalt by the Glaciers thousand of years ago, then transported in the glacial till (floated) and deposited in other locations, usually not far from the source.

Today, diligent searching with metal detectors, sometimes yields these transported pieces of copper. Smaller chunks are normally sold as specimens to rockhounds. Sometimes the Float Copper is very massive in size. The official Guinness World Record Float Copper specimen is 19 tons and resides at the AE Seaman Mineral museum (Michigan’s Official stare Mineral Museum) on the campus of Michigan Tech in Houghton.

I have wire wrapped a couple of the cabs I acquired from Ken. One has a group of Quartz Crystals we call “Quartz Garden”, and one has a beautiful single Quartz Crystal. Completion of this pair or pendants has been a long time coming. I’m so pleased with these.

Visit our Copper Jewelry

You can find our Copper Agate Pendants, Copper Stone Pendants, and other Copper related stones such as Greenstone, or Datolite.