February-March 2022 Fossicking Trip: Stone of the Day #23, Small Kakanui Hematite Jasper

I made two visits today to Seadown Beach just north of Kakanui in North Otago. I spent three hours there in the morning, in the period leading up to low tide. I returned for another two hours in the late afternoon, just prior to high tide. The day was warm and mainly sunny, reaching 22 degrees. Today’s Stone of the Day is one of a number of jaspers I found. It is a small stone, maybe only a couple of centimetres long, and is almost perfectly smooth. The dark silvery material in it is hematite.

Stone of the Day #23, hematite jasper from Kakanui.

A stone like this will need to tumble in a fine grit for seven to ten days before being polished.

Other side of Stone #23.

In the morning, I mainly followed a thin strip of stones along the wave-line. In the afternoon, as the tide was higher, I was able to view larger patches of wet stones.

In the morning, not many stones were wet.

In the afternoon, larger patches were wet.

Kakanui beach stones.

Kakanui beach stones.

My finds today included a number of small stones, but also some larger ones. Among the other jaspers were these ones, which are quite light in colour:

Small jasper.

Small jasper.

Larger jasper.

I continue to find it hard to resist yellow quartzites and their variants:

Kakanui quartzite.

Kakanui quartzite.

Kakanui quartzite.

I first thought this was a quartzite, then wondered if it might be a jasper.

I managed to collect a few fossil sea floor stones, these two among them:

Small stone.

Larger stone.

I picked up some plain and stained quartz stones, including this interesting gray one:

With a torch behind it.

Some of the other stones I took away with me today:

The close-up suggests this could be a quartzite.

The first Post in this Series is here. The Index to all the Posts in the Series is here.

Author: tumblestoneblog

Retired Academic, male, living in the New Zealand countryside near Whanganui with his wife as well as Jasper the dog, Fluffy the cat, Dancer and Penny, the horses, and a shed half-full of stones. Email john.tumblestone@gmail.com. View all posts by tumblestoneblog