The proud new owner of an “unusual” Petoskey Stone weighing almost 100 pounds is wanted for questioning by Michigan officials today.
"We just want to talk to him,” they’ve stated, hinting that it was *probably* illegal for the treasure hunter to have taken such a large fossil out of Lake Michigan for his own personal collection.
Earlier in the week, Tim O’Brien came upon the prehistoric specimen near the great lake’s shore at Northport.
Since announcing that rather rare find, though, he himself has become somewhat difficult to locate, said a spokesman for Michigan’s Department of Natural Resources.
Experts say the 93-pound chunk of petrified coral that O’Brien *may have* unlawfully taken ownership of had been alive over 350-million years ago, and was later uprooted from its bedrock by glaciers during the Pleistocene era.
That makes the ancient rock quite a prize for curators of the Michigan Historical Center in Lansing, who, needless to say, are pretty eager to get their hands on it.
State officials assert that there’s a 25-pound limit per annum on the collection of rocks and minerals by private citizens, and that includes #PetoskeyStones which are mostly made of calcite.
According to DNR rules, therefore, O’Brien will either have to voluntarily forfeit his hefty haul now or face search-and-seizure at his home soon, together with a $500 fine.
