Today’s weather turned out to be sunny and warm so I decided to undertake my third visit this trip to a Slope Point beach (described here in 2023). I drove east for 90 minutes from Riverton Aparima and arrived two hours after high tide. The sea was calm and I spent a good two hours on the small beach. I searched the dry stones much more than the wet ones – the spots and lines of interesting igneous stones can be spotted even in the dry.
My most interesting find was this small stone – on the beach, the white areas attracted my eye and then up-close inspection showed the dark green crystals. Once photographed, zooming in on the stone suggests some of the white areas may be agate. I took nine photos of the stone but because it is so small and much of it is dark, it was difficult to get good clear images up close – the third and fourth photos below are from different images than the first two as they best showed the upper and lower areas of the stone:
But my most surprising find today was a small spherical beach agate (chalcedony) – I’ve not seen a beach agate on this beach before but found them further north, at Kakanui for example. And it photographs well. One side, including when held up to the bright sky:
And the other side:
Some other unusual finds:
Eight of my other finds are below, most of them probably rhyolite:
The next Part of this Series reports on my second-last fossick, for this trip, at Gemstone Beach. The Series Index is here.
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