I wrote this Review for the January-February 2026 edition of “StoneSpeak”, the Newsletter of the Southland Geological and Lapidary Club. The Southland Club’s website is here and its Facebook Page is here.
The most recent edition of the “New Zealand Geographic” magazine features an article called “Dragonlust”. It is introduced as follows: “Split open a chunk of agate and a broiling world of ancient colour emerges. Collecting the stuff is addictive. But with the old rockhounds fading, what will become of the last great hoards?” Among the “old rockhounds” in the article are the Canterbury agate experts Malcolm Luxton (recently deceased), John Taylor, Vince Burke (Birdlings Flat Gemstone and Fossil Museum) and Robin Hall. The article raises the question of what will happen to their finds in the future. Towards the end, Southland’s Jack Geerlings is mentioned. “Another enormous collection – the work of Jack Geerlings, a dairy farmer known for his masterful polishing work – was recently auctioned off in the wake of his death… Seven tonnes of his treasures went at bargain prices, to be absorbed into smaller collections, or sold off by rock shops to tourists.” Reading this article prompted me to take a closer look at the magazine.
The first issue of “New Zealand Geographic” appeared in January-February 1989, and it has been published bi-monthly since then. Warren Judd, whose rock collection was visited by Southland Club members in January, was deputy editor from 1995 to 2004 and then editor for four years. It was one of Judd’s university students, Kennedy Warne, who was founding editor. The magazine’s format is based on “National Geographic”, with great photography and interesting well-researched local stories. The focus is on the geography, biodiversity, history and culture of New Zealand, Antarctica, and nearby Pacific Islands.
In 2014, the magazine marked 25 years in print by digitising its entire back catalogue and making it available online. Anyone can access five items free each month. A $1 subscription provides access to as many articles as you want for two months (I used this while doing research for this review) – after that, a digital subscription costs $8.50 every two months. The website has a very good search function and across the top of an article is a “Related” button that takes you to another article on a similar topic. Or you can search for articles by a writer – for example, Carl Walrond has written a number of geology-related articles. The audited readership of “New Zealand Geographic” in 2024 was 387,000 readers, making it the fourth-most-read magazine in the country. It gets about a million visits a year to its website, which makes it the most-visited magazine site in New Zealand by a good margin. Every now and again it faces financial uncertainty, but its supporters and readers have always worked hard to ensure its survival.
Of course, many of the magazine’s articles deal with topics not directly related to geology, rockhounding or lapidary pursuits. But some do. Here are nine examples: “Rock Hounds” (Jan-Feb 2022) is on Nelson rockhounding and some of the issues around ownership of pounamu; “Ventifacts – Sandblast from the Past” (Nov-Dec 2004) is on stones shaped by wind-blown sand; “Touchstone” (July-Aug 2024) deals with pakohe, a type of argillite; “Pillow Talk” (Jan-Feb 2004) discusses pillow lava; there’s an article on “Gold” (Mar-Apr 2005) ; “The Day the Earth Stood Still” (Jan-Feb 2022) is an article by Warren Judd on the K-Pg boundary in North Canterbury/Southern Marlborough, the geological trace of the apocalyptic event that wiped out the dinosaurs; “Harold Wellman and the Alpine Fault” (Jan-Mar 1999) is on the first recognition of this great faultline; “Hooligan’s Gallstones” (Nov-Dec 2003) refers to the Moeraki Boulders; and “The Menhirs of Rodney County” (July-Aug 2006) describes some unusual rock forms and their geological origin. And there are many articles on what could be called “rock landscapes”, like “The Rocks of Castle Hill” (Oct-Dec 1999) about a limestone karst landscape, and “Eden in Auckland” (July-Aug 2016) about Auckland’s rock forest lava field.
One of the main strengths of “New Zealand Geographic” articles is that they are written as engaging stories. In other words, they are colourful, lively, interesting and informative. They make links to individual people, situate places in their history and culture, and provide relevant well-researched detail. And nearly all of this is local – if you live in New Zealand, you could probably visit these places if you wanted to. It is well worth trying out the introductory $1 subscription to explore for a couple of months the wealth of material in this magazine.
The next Review in this Series is of the “AlexStrekeisen” Website. A Series Index is here.
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