Most of the petrified wood in the area of Slope Point, Southland, is dark coloured if not black. Occasionally I have come across a brown piece incorporating veins of some kind of silicate, maybe quartz or chalcedony (agate). This is maybe my favourite Slope Point stone so far (though it might also be one that Oliver Simpson found and gave to me):
This stone is 3.5 cms at its longest. It came out of the polishing barrel yesterday. I had earlier twice given it a 400 grit tumble as it has a number of cracks in it. I didn’t start with 220 grit as I wanted to have some control over its shaping, to make sure I didn’t make it too small while trying to minimise the size of the cracks. It was impossible to get rid of the cracks, but the stone is gorgeous.
It spent 13 days in tin oxide tumble polish followed by three days in borax.
The following photos include examples of the more common black petrified wood from Slope Point. The first photo is of five stones tumbled in the same batch as Stone #10:
More TumbleStone Blog photos of polished Slope Point stones, including black and brown petrified wood, can be found here.
Stone of the Day #11 is here. The Index to the January 2022 Stone of the Day Series is here.
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