The beach on which I spend most of my time when fossicking near Kakanui in North Otago has many quartzite stones. Most of them are yellow in colour, some are red or with red patches, some have brown in them and some, like this one, are quite light or more neutral in colour.
These are one of my top ten favourite types of stones. I am intrigued by the patterns within them arising from how the colouring mineral is dispersed through them. An idea of the range of colours of these quartzites can be found in the entry for Wednesday 26 May 2021 in this Post (which also mentions that such quartzites are likely to originate in Central Otago).
These quartzite stones are often very smooth when found and also polish very well. I have found them at Timaru and Birdlings Flat so I suspect they can be found on other North Otago and Canterbury beaches as well, if not even further afield. Polishing clarifies the often tiny clear pieces of quartz in the stone. This one was tumbled in 400 grit then 600 grit before going into tumble polish tin oxide for 14 days and a borax burnishing tumble for three days.
Stone #11 is just over 3 cms long, but much larger ones can be found at Kakanui, and I have some in my collection that are around 10-12 cms long. Below are photos of two of them that have just finished a 400 grit tumble in a 6lb barrel and of one (13 cms long) too big to tumble that sits on a shelf in my home office.
Most of the stones are oval and reasonably flat. The occasional one can be almost cylindrical.
Stone of the Day #12 is here. The Index to the January 2022 Stone of the Day Series is here.
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