I spent a few more hours on Gemstone Beach today with Nicola Gray and Angie Nicholas, recently arrived visitors from the North Island. It was again great weather for a fossick, being partly cloudy but with very little wind. I think we all collected even more stones than yesterday. Some of the ones collected by Nicola and Angie were bigger than I am used to as Nicola is able to get them cut. I stick to the small tumble stones. We also have different preferences for what we like – different colours, patterns, shapes as well as sizes. One type we all love is poppy jasper, a few of which we found today, though often quite small. It all made for an interesting day.
Here are two stones found by Angie at the western reach of the fossick, on the bank of the Waimeamea River. The first is a large quartz with brown mineral patches that Nicola volunteered to carry back to the carpark for her. The second is a smaller version where the brown is a bit darker in hue.
Eleven of my finds are featured below. Spending time fossicking with others makes clear my own fossicking style and preferences, especially the fact that fine detail in a stone matters to me. The first two stones are the type that reveal more and more the closer you look at them:
I found these three small jaspers, the first two being orbicular jaspers, also known as poppy jaspers.
Three green stones of different character and pattern :
The final three stones caught my eye for: a very fine pink vein running through a light-coloured stone with small dark brown patches; bright light brown areas against a dark background in a small rhyolite; and a nicely sized chevron trace fossil in a large (8 cm) black mudstone.
The next Post in the “Southern Sojourn 2023” Series features a third visit to Gemstone Beach with Nicola and Angie. The first Post in the Series is here, the Index to the Series is here.
3 thoughts on “Southern Sojourn 2023(36): Second Fossick With Nicola and Angie, Gemstone Beach/Te Waewae Bay, Tuesday 4 April”