Today is the first day of a four week trip to the South Island to collect beach stones for tumble polishing. I left home in Whanganui at 4.30 am to catch a Cook Strait ferry in Wellington. Despite high winds and a rough sea, the sailing went well, After embarking in the South Island, at Picton, at mid-day, I drove for an hour to Ward. When I arrived at the Flaxbourne Motels, I gave Ronnie and Ian the Ward Beach stones I had tumbled which feature in the Series “Selection of Tumbled Ward Beach Stones” – Part 1 of this Series is here. I then drove to Ward Beach. The wind was still blowing but the sun was shining and the temperature was 19 degrees. It was about mid-tide and a good layer of stones were being kept wet at the waves’ edge. During a 40 minute fossick I collected 70 stones.
I found a few surprises on Ward Beach today, some of them arising only upon examination of close-up photos. The most unexpected find was right near the end of the fossick, a small beach agate (chalcedony). This is the first one I have seen this far north, being more used to finding them in Canterbury and North Otago.
The biggest surprise was this brown stone that turns out to have chalcedony in it too. On the beach, I could see the brecciation (fragmentation) in it. I could also just see by the naked eye that it had tiny bits of white in it. The close-ups strongly suggest the presence of agate/chalcedony.
The next pleasant surprise was this small stone – the dark red iron oxide caught my eye, along with the irregular light brown vein, and the close-ups confirm its beauty.
I looked for the stones that might be a mix of limestone and flint and which had maybe quartz veins in them. I picked up these four:
Other stones I found also had veins, or dendrites, or trace fossils (these are explained in the Series of Posts “Selection of Tumbled Ward Beach Stones”). Here are some examples:
I continue my drive south tomorrow.
Part 2 in this Series features a fossick at Kakanui’s Seadown Beach on 4 September and the discovery of a beautiful piece of agatised bone. The Index to the first ten Posts in this Series can be found here.
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