These three stones were collected on different beaches – Orepuki’s Gemstone Beach in Southland, Kakanui’s Seadown Beach in North Otago, and Kai Iwi Beach near Whanganui.
The first stone was found by me on Gemstone Beach on Wednesday 6 March 2024 (see this Post). I stated at the time: Some of my finds today were spectacular, this one in particular. I found it down near the Waimeamea River lagoon. The colour is unique amongst the stones I have found on this beach so far. I suspect it is a jasper, partly because it contains hematite. It is very smooth, almost perfectly so. It was very smooth and its spectacular character was obvious. It is 4.5 cms long. Tumble polishing has succeeded in clarifying those things. Side A (below) includes a cream-coloured vein, part of which is transparent, penetrating part way into the stone.
On Side B, the same cream-coloured vein is again apparent:
Some comparison photos of the stone when found and when polished, illustrating how I often collect beach stones whose colour and patterning are already clear and intriguing, though they have to be wet to see them at their best:
The polishing process results in a stone that is always clear – it doesn’t have to be wet to show its true colours.
The second stone is a larger one, from Kakanui’s Seadown Beach. It has been in my stone stores for a number of years, mainly because of its size (7 cms long). I needed to tumble it in a large barrel, 6lb or 12lb, and I had set it aside for that and didn’t rediscover it until recently. It is a quartzite, a fairly common type on stone on this beach, and it can also be found along the coast right up to Canterbury, including Birdlings Flat. Their size varies quite a bit, as does their colour. Yellow is the most common colour though grey and red also occur. See the Wednesday 26 May 2021 entry in this Post for more information on these quartzites. Quartzite stones tend to tumble polish very well. This one has a handful of tiny holes remaining, but I didn’t want to reduce its size to remove them. The stone more patterning than often the case with quartzites, with some red on Side A…
…and two large circular orange features on Side B.
The third stone was picked up on Kai Iwi Beach, probably while I was walking our dog Jasper. It is the smallest of the three stones, at 4 cms long. While Kai Iwi Beach does not have the gems of Gemstone and Seadown Beaches, I find it hard ignore anything shiny and patterned there. Most of the stones I collect on Kai Iwi Beach are iron stained quartz, but there is a diversity of patterns in such stones. I picked up this stone because of the white patches, one of them looking a bit like the continent of South America.
Side B shows the same kind of white patches – close-ups of the patches reveal the sugar-like grains of quartz:
In between my stones collecting trips to the South Island (the next one is planned for September, two months away), I continue to tumble polish stones.
