Dennis Kovach holds a piece of beach glass found at Conger Beach.(Photo: Bob Gross, Times Herald)Buy Photo <\/p>\n
Brian Martin was working on a personal watercraft lift when he saw something white and shining in the surf of Lake Huron. <\/p>\n
\"It thought it was either a skull or a fossil,\" said Martin, of Fort Gratiot. <\/p>\n
He said it took him four tries to snatch what turned out tobe a chunkof coral about the size of a softball from the lake's grip. <\/p>\n
\"I looked like an old woman or a sandpiper running up and down the beach,\" he said. <\/p>\n
That was on Wednesday, when strong north winds piled upthe waves on the Michigan shoreline of the big lake. <\/p>\n
Brian Martin found a highly detailed fossil that washed up on a Lake Huron beach.(Photo: Courtesy of Brian Martin) <\/p>\n
People were out on Thursday looking for what the water had deposited on the beach. <\/p>\n
\"Everyone on the beach looks for glass and Petoskey stones and such,\" said Dennis Kovach, of Port Huron. <\/p>\n
He said he's not an avid collector of beach glass and fossils, but he keeps his eyes open during his daily strolls at Conger Beach. <\/p>\n
\"Everybody that's on the beach here is looking,\" Kovach said. \"It's amazing at how much of the stuff they find.\" <\/p>\n
Beach glass consists of pieces of old bottles and other containers. The pounding surf polishes away the rough and jagged edges, leaving pebble-sized pieces with a frosted surface. <\/p>\n
\"Some of the people make jewelry out of the glass,\" Kovach said. <\/p>\n
People also find Petoskey stones. The stones are fragments of coral deposited during the Devonian period, which ended about 390 million years ago. <\/p>\n
Dennis Kovach looks for beach glass and Petoskey stones at Conger Beach.(Photo: Bob Gross, Times Herald) <\/p>\n
Ann Troy also was walking the shoreline at Conger Beach on Thursday. <\/p>\n
\"It's the best time to find it, after the north wind stops blowing and before the summer people come,\" she said. <\/p>\n
She said she finds beach glass and Petoskey stones. <\/p>\n
\"Sometimes I put it in jars with candles,\" she said. \"I make jewelry sometimes. <\/p>\n
\"Sometimes it just sits.\" <\/p>\n
Troy said she walks the beach several times a week. <\/p>\n
Pirate gold isn't the only buried treasure. After a north wind, people hit the beaches to see what the waves have deposited. Bob Gross, Times Herald <\/p>\n
\"It is fun,\" she said. <\/p>\n
Kovach said it's surprising what he and other people find on the beach. <\/p>\n
\"People that I've met, they have what they identify as the bottom of a Coke bottle,\" he said. <\/p>\n
Beach glass, however, seems to be less common as plastic containers replace glass bottles, he said. <\/p>\n
Martin marveled that the coral fossil he found had been formed when Michigan was covered by a shallow sea. <\/p>\n
\"It just walked itself up out of the lake, and I was lucky enough to find it,\" he said. <\/p>\n
Contact Bob Gross at (810) 989-6263 or rgross@gannett.com<\/a>. Follow him on Twitter @RobertGross477. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Read or Share this story: http:\/\/bwne.ws\/2skJNwa<\/a> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Follow this link:<\/p>\n North wind deposits treasures on Lake Huron beaches - Port Huron Times Herald<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dennis Kovach holds a piece of beach glass found at Conger Beach.(Photo: Bob Gross, Times Herald)Buy Photo Brian Martin was working on a personal watercraft lift when he saw something white and shining in the surf of Lake Huron. \"It thought it was either a skull or a fossil,\" said Martin, of Fort Gratiot Continue reading