Today, Oliver Simpson and I undertook a low-tide fossick, starting at Gemstone Beach and working west along the stony beach of Te Waewae Bay. Usually Oliver hosts me at Slope Point – see this Post from last year. However, for a change, he came west to meet up with me at Riverton, before travelling with me to Orepuki and Gemstone Beach. The forecast had suggested wind could be an issue but that didn’t eventuate. Despite a coolish mainly cloudy day, it turned out to be a reasonably comfortable fossick, except for Oliver getting some wet gumboots. At one point, we met some horse riders on the beach. Sometime after that, Oliver found a nice little hydrogrossular garnet – quite a change from the petrified wood he tends to focus on at Slope Point.
Here are ten of the stones I found today. Some of them are quite colourful but this one, a heavily brecciated argillite(?), is my favourite due to the tiny fragments that can be seen in it, crisscrossed with fine veins. One side has a much lighter patch that has been subjected to the same stresses.
The second stone is more colourful and could be amygdaloidal (a volcanic stone with small gas bubble holes which have been infilled by some mineral precipitating out of hot water). It should tumble polish well.
The next two are both attractive stones to me but for very different reasons. The first one has a clearly obvious stress fracture running down the middle, off-setting the quartz band. The second one has a much more subtle pattern.
Two further stones with some interesting colours:
Finally, four green stones of diverse character:
My next fossick involves a 90 minute drive to Slope Point. The first Post in the “Southern Sojourn 2023” Series is here. The Index to the Series is here.
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