Today I arrived down at the Southland coast, having driven about 1,250 kilometres from home in Whanganui. I was heading to Chrissy’s place at Papatotara, just west of Tuatapere, where I am staying for the next three weeks. Gemstone Beach is on the way, so Chrissy and I met up there for a quick fossick. I arrived at the beach at 1pm, and we spent about one hour and 40 minutes hunting for stones. It was a cold but sunny day. There was a lot more sand and fewer patches of stones than usual but still lots to search. The waves were more unsettled and a little less predictable than normal, due to the recent large Russian earthquate. So we kept an eye out for any that were coming up the beach faster and further. We met Carmen and William, a local couple who are keen stone collectors and polishers. And then a wave did catch Chrissy and I near the Taunoa Stream on our way back and I got two gumboots full of freezing cold water.
I collected only 19 stones today. This was partly due to the conversations I was having with Chrissy, catching up on things. But it also takes time for my fossicking eye to develop, my last fossick down here being in March, some four months ago. The stones I most easily recognised were the trace fossil ones – the shapes seemed to stand out clearly to me. Here are three I collected. The first two are the more common colour of light-hued traces in grey-green stones, the third being an unusual set of raised dark red traces in a dark grey stone:
For some background on trace fossil stones, see the Post “Green Argillite Stones” in the Series “Gemstone Beach and its Stones: An Introduction for the Passing Motorist”. Stones Gn40 to Gn62 there contain trace fossils, and there is accompanying information on them.
I also found these three different kinds of stones with green epidote in them. The first is the most uniform in colour and texture, the second has swirling patches of epidote plus small fragments of white quartz, and the third has areas of brighter more intense green:
The seventh featured find is a small rhyolite, a volcanic stone:
And the final one today is another igneous stone, this time a black and white one, I’m not sure of its identification
In the Post “Stones With White Spots & Crystals” in the Series “Gemstone Beach and its Stones: An Introduction for the Passing Motorist”, there are examples of the range of white-spotted igneous stones on Gemstone Beach – see Stones W43 to W63.
A second trip to Gemstone Beach is the subject of the next Post in this Series, “Between the Beauty and the Pain”. An Index to the Series is here.
The wave that caught us gave me a little bit of a fright and was a timely reminder not to become complacent! Great to catch up and have you back in Southland though!!