Early 2024 Fossicking Trip – Part 22, Sunday Afternoon Fossick, Gemstone Beach and Te Waewae Bay, Sunday 10 March

At Gemstone Beach today, I spent two and a half hours looking for stones to tumble polish. The weather was warmer than for usual, being 20 degrees when I left at 4.20pm, though the wind was starting to get up. I had to wait again for the high tide waves to recede a bit before crossing the Taunoa Stream. I chatted to a fossicker from Auckland for a while before I moved westwards.

When I arrived at Gemstone Beach, 2pm on a Sunday.

The powerful waves of Te Waewae Bay, just west of Gemstone Beach.

Driftwood on the down-wind edge of the Waimeamea River lagoon.

Stones on the Te Waewae Bay beach, west of Gemstone Beach.

I found some very interesting little stones, three small poppy jaspers, and a handful of nice hydrogrossular garnets. Below are two of the poppy jaspers:

Three other small stones that caught my eye:

Maybe chrome in diopside in hydrogrossular garnet – Side A of stone.

Side B of stone.

Unusual bright light-blue.

The first stone I found, in front of the carpark at Gemstone Beach.

Six “greenies” from my fossick – green-hued stones, or stone with green in them.

Banded argillite with inclusions of quartz-epidote.

Quite an intense lime green when face-to-face.

A dirty green mudstone, brecciated.

Trace fossils in dark green argillite. They have eroded at a slower rate than the host argillite.

Eight other finds, four of them being hydrogrossular garnets:

Hydrogrossular garnet.

Hydrogrossular garnet.

Hydrogrossular garnet.

Hydrogrossular garnet.

In Part 23, I meet up with a number of people at Gemstone Beach and end up collecting only a few stones this time. The Series Index 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