September 2024 Stone Collecting Trip –Part 11, Eight Back Beach Finds, Monday Morning 16 September

After a rest day yesterday, due to bad weather, I undertook two fossicks today. The first was at the Back Beach in Riverton Aparima, the scene of two previous fossicks on this trip, a week ago and three days ago. I collected 40 stones there during a 40 minute walk at high tide. It was a cold seven degrees, though the sun was shining most of the time. The waves were thundering in from Foveaux Strait and I had to keep a sharp eye out to avoid wet feet.

Here are eight of my finds. The first has some small fragmentation in it that caught my eye. I also like the gray hues in it. The stone is 5 cms long.

My second featured find is only 3 cms long but its white flashes stood out on the beach:

Another strongly coloured stone, this one is a deep orange with some interesting markings and a couple of tiny white specks:

The fourth find is a purple volcanic stone, another strong colour:

The following is a type of stone I have seen before along the Southland coast, a breccia with a range of interesting angular clasts (fragments):

The last three stones lack the colour of the previous four but I find their compositions attractive. The first of them contains a black mineral in interesting small crystal shapes:

A scattering of black crystals in a quartzy stone:

And, finally, the black in this last stone is very tiny, like a scattering of fine grit:

Part 12 reports on Monday afternoon’s fossick on Gemstone Beach in bitterly cold conditions. The Index to the first ten Posts in this Series can be found here.