It is 276 square miles (710 km2) in size and is located off Michigan's Thumb north of Detroit.

The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality has counted 10 known shipwrecks within the boundaries protected by the preserve.

[1] As in most of the Great Lakes, most of the shipwrecks predate the consolidation of federal marine safety services into the United States Coast Guard in 1915.

The foundered SS Daniel J. Morrell, a lake freighter which split in two and sank in 1966 with a loss of 28 lives, also lies off the shore of Michigan's Thumb, but outside the boundaries of the Underwater Preserve.

The Underwater Preserve protects a network of limestone sea caves off Port Austin.