June-July 2026 South Island Trip – Part 8, Southland Geological and Lapidary Club “Mini Rock and Mineral Show/Open Day”, Saturday 11 July

This Post provides quite a bit of detail about the Southland Geological and Lapidary Club’s Show and Open Day so that in the future I can read back about what I did and consider what worked. Too many things were going on for me to see, remember and describe everything that happened on the day and I apologise for what I missed and if I overlooked anyone. I neglected to take enough photos so most of the ones below are Chrissy’s from the Club’s Facebook Page or screen grabs from Chrissy’s video. 

I timed my trip south to coincide with this event so that I could contribute. I have not been involved in a rock and mineral show before, though three or four years ago I visited the North Otago one in Oamaru. I left my accommodation in Papatotara just after 7.30am on a dark cold (four degrees) morning. The drive to Invercargill was punctuated by intermittent showers. I arrived at the show hall – Whare Taupua in Forth Street – around 9am to set up for the Show’s opening at 10am.

A quick pic when the crowd thinned out a little.

Chrissy took a video of the Show’s layout just after it opened – see here. There was a table at the hall entrance where a gold coin entrance fee was taken and a card handed out with images of things from six different tables. When a person found one of these images, the table holder punched their card. Once all six were identified and punched, the person could collect a small bag of Chrissy’s polished stones as their prize. My table’s image was a trace fossil rock with two large distinctive traces. The people at the entrance, Jenni, Gordon and George, also kept an eye on numbers – the first hour saw 125 visitors, with just over 450 coming through during the six hour event. Michelle and Rachel helped visitors arriving outside the building to find the right entrance.

In the small hall were ten tables organised by Club members, some being displays, some being competitions, some selling stone-related jewellery. At the first table, David had brought along rough and polished stones of different types from different places in Southland, all labelled in groups – I found myself wandering over there three or four times to have a pick up and look. He also had a pet rock in a cage.

David’s display of rock finds. Source: http://www.facebook.com/sglc.rocks.
Andrew ran a rock quiz alongside his ventifacts display.

Andrew had organised a quiz competition where people had to identify eight different minerals or rocks – for example, one was pumice, another was carnelian, there was some sulphur and another was amethyst. The prize was the winner’s choice of a nice-sized polished stone (again provided by Chrissy) from the Club table. Andrew also had a display of quite a few ventifacts (stones shaped and polished by wind-driven sand), mainly from Southland’s Tiwai Point and South Taranaki’s Waitotara. The display included information about the processes leading to their formation.   

Next to Andrew was a table displaying and selling pendants crafted by Michelle of Deep South Pounamu (Mataura), assisted for the day by Amelia. Michelle had recently run a workshop for the Club, teaching attendees how to work with pounamu. I was pleased to finally meet Michelle in person after interacting with her a few times on Facebook about stone-related topics. Michelle also ran a draw for a toki pendant for anyone who visited her table. To her left was the Club table where prizes were collected, and fossils and lucky dips were sold. Tina and Sorsha looked after this area. 

Michelle (left) and Amelia busy at the Deep South Pounamu table.
Tina (right) and Sorsha at the Club table, ready to hand out prizes. Source: http://www.facebook.com/sglc.rocks.

Next was Pauline with a display of petrified wood from her and Caleb’s collection as well as the collections of a couple of other members. Again, this was a table I was drawn to myself to have a look, especially at the Slope Point specimens. Kaleb was next-door with an unusual and very well laid-out display of (mainly) sea glass. Sea glass is weathered glass found on the coast, formed when discarded bottles and tableware are tumbled by waves and sand over a long period of time. As Wikipedia notes, collectors highly prize rare colours like red, orange, and purple alongside common shades like green, brown, and white. Pauline said to me quietly at one point, “You know, Kaleb and I had our first date on Gemstone Beach”.

Pauline’s table featuring a range of petrified wood. Source: http://www.facebook.com/sglc.rocks.
Kaleb’s display of sea glass, with Sam and Sarah (and me) behind. Source: http://www.facebook.com/sglc.rocks.

Sam and Sarah had a table between Caleb and me. This featured jewellery crafted by Sam, the second of the three tables selling stone-related products. The third was on the other side of me, where items from Chrissy and Trevor were displayed and for sale, with Mike keeping an eye on them. Completing the circle was Chrissy’s display of tumble polishing. Central to this was a quiet working set of two small (3lb) barrels, a non-working 4lb barrel, and she also had a vibrating polisher which she occasionally turned on to demonstrate how noisy it was. Alongside were containers of the various grits and polish powder. There were some unpolished stones at one end of the table and some polished ones at the other end. Lots of people had questions about the process and the various options for getting a tumbler. Chrissy was kept very busy explaining everything.

Mike behind the table of Chrissy and Trevor’s stone jewellery. Source: http://www.facebook.com/sglc.rocks.
Chrissy explaining stuff about tumble polishing. Source: http://www.facebook.com/sglc.rocks.

Jenny and Rachel occasionally brought food and refreshments around to the tables and offered any extra assistance. Altogether, it was a significant Club effort from many members, and it paid off beyond expectations.    

I had brought with me from Whanganui four lots of Gemstone Beach polished stones – the stones heading south again after I had brought them all the way north! The two main lots were trace fossil stones and banded rhyolite, the other two being hydrogrossular garnets and a “mixed” lot. I made sure the stones were of good quality and of varied sizes, and I also brought along some large unplolished specimens to display for comparison.

Despite the sig, I still had to tell people they could take one home for free.
The trace fossils sign plus some unpolished specimens.
The starting plate of free polished trace fossil stones and the accompanying small information sheets.
Free trace fossil stones!

I had small information sheets (one-sixth of an A4 page) for each group of giveaway stones plus one for Gemstone Beach itself. Each sheet ended with a link to TumbleStone Blog for further information. They read as follows:

TRACE FOSSILS IN ARGILLITE FROM GEMSTONE BEACH: These trace fossils are the burrows or trails of tiny animals left in sediments at the bottom of the sea during the Permian Era more than 250 million years ago. They are found in argillite stones. Argillite is a mudstone, a fine-grained sedimentary rock, one of the main basement rocks of New Zealand. Lots of argillite stones can be found on Gemstone Beach, many of them containing trace fossils. Known locally as “fossil worm casts”, the traces come in a variety of colours, shapes and sizes. When tumble polishing these stones, a light touch is needed to preserve the traces on the surface. For more on trace fossils, see https://tumblestoneblog.com/2025/11/27/tumblestone-calendar-2026-july-trace-fossils-in-argillite.

BANDED RHYOLITE FROM GEMSTONE BEACH: Rhyolite is a volcanic igneous rock with a very high silica content. It is the volcanic equivalent of granite which is formed underground. Depending on the nature of its emergence, rhyolite can also take the form of ignimbrite (dense ash), obsidian (glassy) or pumice (spongy). These stones are the most common form of rhyolite on Gemstone Beach, a very dark brown with thin light brown bands and small light-coloured crystals. They are also found further east on the Southland coast at Riverton Aparima and Slope Point. These stones tumble polish well because of their glassy nature. For more information on rhyolite, and disagreements about what this stone might be, see https://tumblestoneblog.com/2023/11/22/november-2023-polished-stones-stone-of-the-day-22.

HYDROGROSSULAR GARNETS FROM GEMSTONE BEACH: Hydrogrossular garnet is perhaps the most sought-after stone on Gemstone Beach. It is a non-crystalline type of garnet, having been formed as a dense mass, not a crystal. The addition of water to grossular garnet gives rise to the hydrogrossular variety. It was identified for the first time in the world by a New Zealander in 1943. The purer forms are translucent, the rest often being opaque. Colour varies, depending on what other minerals are mixed in. Rough hydrogrossular garnets usually feel waxy and shine brightly when wet. They polish easily. For more on hydrogrossular garnets, see https://tumblestoneblog.com/2022/06/02/ts2-hydrogrossular-garnet.

MIXED POLISHED TUMBLESTONES FROM GEMSTONE BEACH: These stones represent some of the great diversity that can be found on Gemstone Beach. They include sedimentary, igneous and metamorphic stones, and have been brought down by the Waiau River from the Fiordland mountains. Colours vary as do the small veins, marks and patterns seen in them. After found as sea-worn smooth on the beach, they have been tumble-polished in a small rubber barrel constantly for between five and seven weeks with grit that smooths them further then with powder that puts a shine on them. For an explanation of 30 mixed polished Gemstone Beach stones, see https://tumblestoneblog.com/2025/05/14/thirty-gemstone-beach-pebbles-for-doug-stones-1-to-5.

GEMSTONE BEACH: This beach lies 70 kms west of Invercargill, with the mountains of eastern Fiordland in the background. It is on the Te Waewae Bay coast, on the shores of Foveaux Strait. The name “Gemstone Beach” most narrowly applies to a 250 metre stretch in front of the carpark opposite the “Gemstone Beach” sign just west of Orepuki. Even when sand covers the carpark beach area, the stretch that runs from there to the mouth of the Waimeamea River, 1.5 kilometres to the northwest, is nearly always covered in stones. There is a great diversity of colourful and patterned stones here, mainly brought down to the coast by the Waiau River. For more on Gemstone Beach, see https://tumblestoneblog.com/2022/06/02/ts2-gemstone-beach.

I had also prepared five signs, mounted in photo frames that could be stood up on the table. The main one stated:

FREE!
PICK A STONE TO TAKE HOME
POLISHED STONES FROM GEMSTONE BEACH
Feel free to look through these stones

The other signs briefly described the different lots of stones. The stones themselves were placed in paper plates so that people could look through them. I regularly refreshed the plates with new stones. I started out by having the trace fossils and banded rhyolites on the table. Eventually, I ran out of these and so replaced them with the other two lots. I didn’t count how many stones I gave away but I think it would have been well over 100. Just as well I brought a lot with me – I initially thought I had overdone it by bringing so many but that turned out not to be the case. 

It was the school holidays. Lots of families with young children came along. Often the hall was packed, the visitors able to move only slowly from table to table. This intensity only really eased for the last half hour. The children loved picking out a stone to take away. I often had a parent say to me, “At home, this kid is always turning up with a pocketful of stones!” Many had been out to Gemstone Beach and were certainly planning to go again. I got the chance to chat briefly with two people who are regular readers of TumbleStone Blog.

There were a few keys to the success of the Show. Foremost was the planning, organisation and many contributions by Chrissy, the Club Secretary. Then the members who organised tables were all enthusiastic, knowledgeable, friendly and supportive to others. There were a few important “helpers” who quietly pitched in to do what was needed and to offer assistance. Well done, everyone!

The next Post in this Series is on a Gemstone Beach fossick the next day. An Index to the Series is available here.  

June-July 2026 South Island Trip – Part 7, Second Papatotara Beach Fossick, Thursday 9 July

We had some more wind and rain yesterday (Wednesday) then the sun returned though the temperature was still low. At noon I visited Papatotara Beach for 90 minutes at low tide, the temperature being eight degrees. It was very wet and muddy at the bottom of the track down to the beach so I was glad for my sturdy pair of gumboots. There were fewer stones and more sand at the waves’ edge due to the low tide, leading to a less productive fossick. However, my 17 finds included some interesting specimens, as revealed by the photos of the six featured below.

A very wet and muddy beach entrance.
Looking west.
Looking east, more sand than when the tide is higher.
This afternoon’s 17 finds.

My most interesting find was what I think is a small brecciated argillite:

Small brecciated argillite.
Other side of stone.

Tectonic stress has most likely fragmented the middle of the stone, then hot water running through has deposited quartz to fill the gaps and hold the fragments in place.

I picked up this little stone because of its dark red halo of iron oxide and I could spot some very tiny patches of colour in it. The photos reveal that it is a breccia though maybe the fragments are small enough for it to be classified as a sandstone:

Breccia or sandstone?
Other side of stone.

 

A stone with interesting white veins:

I suspect the veins are quartz, but I am unsure.

Two contrasting black and white igneous stones – one dominated by white, the other dominated by black:

See Section 5 “Stones With Opaque White Crystals” in this Post for an idea of the fuller range of such stones.

Finally, yet another intriguing small jasper I have found this trip:  

Small Papatotara Beach jasper.

On Saturday I take part in the Open Day of the Southland Geological and Lapidary Club, giving away some polished Gemstone Beach stones (especially trace fossils, rhyolite and hydrogrossular garnets).

The next Post is about the “Mini Rock and Mineral Show/Open Day” organised by the Southland Geological and Lapidary Club in Invercargill. An Index to the Series is available here.  

June-July 2026 South Island Trip – Part 6, Seven Featured Finds From Gemstone Beach, Tuesday 7 July

Chrissy and I arrived at Gemstone Beach at 11.30am, at low tide. Quite a few other people were there, despite the cold – it was only four degrees when we started and seven degrees when we left, two hours later. But it was sunny and there was no wind.

Looking west upon arriving on Gemstone Beach.
Some of the people on Gemstone Beach today.
Fossickers at the mouth of the Taunoa Stream.
The house in the cliff.

We walked down to the Waimeamea River, finding about six other people already down there. We chatted to one who is a long-time rockhound who also crafts stone pendants. I collected 28 stones, seven being featured below. 

Looking in the distance to the mouth of the Waimeamea River.
Chrissy at the mouth of the Waimeamea River
Gemstone Beach stones.
My finds today.

I initially thought this first stone was what is known as pink granite, its pink/orange hue (sometimes referred to as salmon) due to the presence of potassium (orthoclase) feldspar. But there appeared to be some unusual spots in it, along with some small patches of green epidote. The close-up photos revealed more:     

My suspicion is that this might be pink granite that has been subject to some metamorphic processes, introducing epidote along with some re-formed minerals clustering into spots and other shapes. 

Next is a very small chromite in quartz stone, a glassy stone with green through it. There are some interesting “clouds” in it:

Small chromite in quartz stone.
Other side of small chromite in quartz stone.

Third is a small grey translucent hydrogrossular garnet – this was the first stone I picked up today, at the water’s edge right in front of the carpark:

Hydrogrossular garnet.
Held up to the sun.
Other side of hydrogrossular garnet.

Another small stone, a dark one, that has some brecciation of light-coloured material on one edge:

Another interesting small jasper from this beach, seemingly made up of tiny wriggles:

A recent Post featured other interesting small Gemstone Beach jaspers.

Sixth is one of my favourite stones, a trace fossil in argillite, this one with nice strong traces in it:

The final featured find is another jasper, which has a little green epidote patch showing through on one side:

My next fossick will be on Papatotara Beach. An Index to the Posts in this Series is available here.   

June-July 2026 South Island Trip – Part 5, An Outstanding Poppy Jasper Find, Papatotara Beach, Friday 3 July

Papatotara Beach is located a few kilometres west of Gemstone Beach. It lies just a few hundred metres from Mike and Chrissy’s place where I am staying. The stones here are similar in a number of ways to those on Gemstone Beach but they are generally not as sea-worn smooth and there is less diversity. Usually I manage to find four or five nice specimens each fossick (see the bottom of this Post for a list of my other fossicks at Papatotara Beach).

The tide was relatively high when I arrived at 3pm. It was cloudy with a medium wind throughout my one and a half hours there, the temperature being a comfortable 15 degrees. I walked westwards, in the direction of the mouth of the Waiau River and Gemstone Beach.

The Fiordland moutains to the west.
The track down to the beach.
Looking west.
Looking east, the direction I walked.
The stones on the beach.
Later in the fossick, the clouds got darker.

I took away only 13 finds but the time was well-spent because of the unusual poppy jasper I found. I glimpsed it out of the corner of my eye, half buried, about 30 minutes after starting.

Papatotara Beach stones.
Papatotara Beach stones.
My 13 finds this afternoon.

It’s been very cold in Southland, with a lot of rain and wind. It didn’t calm down until Monday, three days later, and the sun came out at noon for 15 minutes, enabling me to take photos of these finds.

The orbs in the poppy jasper are slightly higher than the rest of the stone:

One side of the poppy jasper.

A view of the stone from a different side – there’s other interesting bits in there:

Another side of the poppy jasper.

Part of the stone is other material, light green in colour:

Poppy jasper from a third perspective.

There’s an explanation of poppy (orbicular) jasper in this Post, along with specimens illustrating some of the variations I have come across.

Two other finds today: the first is a white quartz stone:

Papatotara Beach quartz stone.

And an igneous stone – I love the variety of crystals that can be seen in these:

This could be a plutonic stone, given the size of the crystals, but I don’t know enough to guess at what specific type it is likely to be.

My five past Fossicks on Papatotara Beach (in chronological order):
18 March 2023
15 & 16 August 2025 (including directions to the beach and featuring a green hydrogrossular garnet, five poppy jaspers and a thulite stone)
23 August 2025
20 March 2026

The next Post is on another Gemstone Beach fossick. An Index to this Series is available here.  

A Review of the “Geology.com” Website

This Review originally appeared in the July 2026 edition of “StoneSpeak”, the Newsletter of the Southland Geological and Lapidary Club. Below is a slightly expanded version. An Index to this Series of Reviews is here. The Southland Club’s website is here and its Facebook Page is here.  

When I’m searching online for information on a particular stone or mineral, one of the websites that often comes up is Geology.com, a US based site. Its articles tend to be very informative and well-illustrated, always including excellent photos of hand-sized specimens. In fact, a wide range of material can be found there – in its “About” page, it states: “Geology.com is one of the internet’s leading websites for Earth science articles, news about geology, and geographic information. Every day thousands of people visit Geology.com to view our map collection or to read articles about rocks, minerals, gems, and many other Earth science topics.”   

StoneSpeak Newsletter, July 2026.
First page of review article.
The Newsletter contains an ad for this coming week-end’s Club Open Day that I will be attending.

The website is owned by Hobart M. King and run as a family business. According to a Gemological Institute of America article on him, his geological interests began as a six-year-old, hunting for fossils in the limestone driveway at home, and he took up rock tumbling a few years later. He eventually gained a PhD in geology from West Virginia University and a graduate diploma from the Gemological Institute of America. He was employed for many years as a geologist at the West Virginia Geological and Economic Survey and he has also taught geology at university level, mainly at Mansfield University of Pennsylvania (“About the Author” in Geology.com). He is now retired.

Hobart M. King of Geology.com. Source: http://www.gia.edu/gia-news-research/tucson-visit-spurs-geology-professor-publisher-head-back-school.
Geology.com home page.

King became interested in the internet for teaching geology in the mid-1990s. In 2005, he found out that the Geology.com domain, originally owned by a petroleum consulting company, was up for auction. “I went home and told my wife I wanted to buy the website,” he recalls, “so we scraped together as much money as we could and actually won it in the auction” (Google Adsense article). Geology.com has become a family business, with King’s wife, sister, daughter and nephew each working in various roles. He also owns and operates RockTumbler.com (the subject of the next review).

Geology.com has an online store for a wide range of geology and stone-related goods. For example, there is an extensive offering of books on a range of topics such as  geology, rocks, minerals, gemstones and fossils. Also for sale are rock and mineral kits and tumbled stones. Unfortunately, none of these are available for sale outside of the United States.

From the beginning, King decided to accept commercial ad traffic on his websites because of the revenue it generated. He uses Google AdSense. He notes that “AdSense is about 50% of our profit and still the most profitable part of our business today” (Google Adsense article). I find that when I use the website, the ads are noticeable but not too intrusive – they tend to be down the lefthand page margin or at the bottom of the screen. Even now and then a page is interrupted by an ad that can easily be dismissed with one click. The quality of the information and illustrations of stones and minerals easily outweighs any annoyance, in my experience.

“Rocks” page, Geology.com.
“Minerals” page, Geology.com.
“Gemstones” page, Geology.com.
Part of “Rocks” page, Geology.com.
Part of Gemstones” page, Geology.com.
Article on flint, chert and jasper, Geology.com.

The “Rocks” section of Geology.com begins with links to pages of photos for igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary rocks. Then there are pages on 45 different rocks, from andesite and basalt through to shale and siltstone. This coverage is limited and maybe will be expanded in the future. Argillite, for example, is not currently included, with siltstone being the closest category. Chert is included but not jasper – through the chert page has a link to an article entitled “Flint, Chert, and Jasper: Names for Microcrystalline Quartz”.    

The “Minerals” section is a lot larger, with a list of 90, from andalusite, anhydrite and apatite all the way to vesuvianite, zircon and zoisite (which includes thulite). The “Minerals” main page also contains links to articles on such topics as fluorescent minerals, using acid for testing, mineral hardness, and streak testing. If you can’t find something in the “Rocks” or “Minerals” section, check out “Gemstones” which includes over 120 entries including amethyst, nephrite and even dinosaur bone.

The home page lists a number of categories of “Geology and Earth Science News and Information”. Here, articles can be found on such topics as plate tectonics (15 articles), fossils (17 articles) and meteorites (19 articles). The coverage is global, not focused just on material from the United States.

In conclusion, Geology.com content is written by a specialist in geology and gemology but with non-specialists firmly in mind. It covers some technical detail relating to a rock or mineral but I find that it is always explained clearly and technical jargon is avoided. Usually I wish a bit more information had been included but what is there is very useful.

The next Review in this Series is of King’s second website “Rocktumbler.com”. The Series Index is here.  

Index to “June-July 2026 South Island Trip” Series

On Monday 22 June 2026 I drove from home in Whanganui to Wellington to catch a Bluebridge Cook Strait ferry. I stopped the next two nights in Ward in Marlborough, visiting Ward Beach on the Tuesday. I then continued south reaching the south coast of Southland a few days later. One of the aims of the trip was to finish the draft of the book that Chrissy and I are compiling on Gemstone Beach stones. I returned home five weeks later. As usual, I documented the beaches I visited during this trip and the stones I collected for tumble polishing. In this Index, you can click on a link to be taken to the relevant Post. The photos above each link give you an idea of the beach and the stones that feature in that Post. For Indexes to other fossicking trips I’ve conducted in the past, see “An Annotated Index of Indexes on TumbleStone Blog”. 

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Ward Beach, looking south-west from the carpark.
The sea has eaten into the stone beach, leaving a steep drop in places. Looking north.
Ward Beach stones, wet from the waves.
Today’s collected 21.

Part 1 – Six Finds from Ward Beach, Tuesday 23 June

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The scattering of stones I checked out as I walked north.
Local fire truck crossing the new Kakanui bridge.
My 18 finds this afternoon.

Part 2 – A Bitterly Cold Kakanui Fossick, Thursday 25 June

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Looking back towards the carpark from the Taunoa Stream.
Chrissy on the beach near the start of the Waimeamea Lagoon.
This afternoon’s finds.

Part 3 – Four Breccia Finds, a Small Pinkie and a Tiny Poppy Jasper from Gemstone Beach, Monday 29 June

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This afternoon’s 29 finds.
Spherulites? See next photo.
Tiny waterline agate in vein.
Intriguing quartz vein.
Patches and patterns.
Some green epidote in the mix?
Dark hematite and translucent quartz.
Dark hematite and white quartz.

Part 4 – Intriguing Details in Small Jaspers Found on Gemstone Beach, Wednesday 1 July

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Looking west.
Later in the fossick, the clouds got darker.
Papatotara Beach stones.
My 13 finds this afternoon.

Part 5 – An Outstanding Poppy Jasper Find, Papatotara Beach, Friday 3 July

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Fossickers at the mouth of the Taunoa Stream.
Gemstone Beach stones.
My finds today.

Part 6 – Seven Featured Finds From Gemstone Beach, Tuesday 7 July

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A very wet and muddy beach entrance.
Looking east, more sand than when the tide is higher.
Looking west.
This afternoon’s 17 finds.

Part 7 – Second Papatotara Beach Fossick, Thursday 9 July 

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David’s display of rock finds. Source: http://www.facebook.com/sglc.rocks.
Andrew ran a rock quiz alongside his ventifacts display.
Michelle (left) and Amelia busy at the Deep South Pounamu table.
Tina (right) and Sorsha at the Club table, ready to hand out prizes. Source: http://www.facebook.com/sglc.rocks.
Pauline’s table featuring a range of petrified wood. Source: http://www.facebook.com/sglc.rocks.
Kaleb’s display of sea glass, with Sam and Sarah (and me) behind. Source: http://www.facebook.com/sglc.rocks.
Mike behind the table of Chrissy and Trevor’s stone jewellery. Source: http://www.facebook.com/sglc.rocks.
Chrissy explaining stuff about tumble polishing. Source: http://www.facebook.com/sglc.rocks.
Despite the sig, I still had to tell people they could take one home for free.

Part 8 – Southland Geological and Lapidary Club “Mini Rock and Mineral Show/Open Day”, Saturday 11 July 

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Part 9 – A Sunday Afternoon on Gemstone Beach, Sunday 12 July

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Looking back towards the carpark.
One of the greatly expanded areas of stones on the other side of the Taunoa Stream. Another fossicker coming our way.
My 66 finds from today.

Part 10 – Farewell Fossick on Gemstone Beach, Sunday 19 July 

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Lee on Seadown Beach.
Shona rockhounding on Seadown Beach.
Scattered stones, Seadown Beach.

Part 11 – Meeting Lee and Shona on Kakanui’s Seadown Beach, Tuesday 21 July 

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Part 12 – Jaspers and Quartzites from Timaru South, Wednesday 22 July 

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Just prior to a wave sweeping up the beach. Compare next photo.
A wave sweeping up the beach.

Part 13 – An Hour on Ward Beach, Sunday 26 July 

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Uplifted bedrock a couple of hundred metres upstream from the river mouth. Weld Cone in background.

Part 14 – Another Hour on Ward Beach, Monday 27 July

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June-July 2026 South Island Trip – Part 4, Intriguing Details in Small Jaspers Found on Gemstone Beach, Wednesday 1 July

I returned to Gemstone Beach, by myself, two days after my first visit. It was just after high tide when I arrived at 1.50pm. The weather was good again, being sunny and 12 degrees with only a very light breeze. I spent two hours there, walking down to the Waimeamea River and back. Today the Waimeamea was cut off from the sea by stones brought in by the waves over the last couple of days.

The Stream With No Name, near the carpark.
Stones in the Stream With No Name.
Looking down on the Taunoa Stream from a nearby hill.
The Waimeamea River, cut off from flowing to the sea.
This afternoon’s 29 finds.

Among my 29 finds today were eight small dark red jaspers. It turned out that they were a lot more interesting than I initially thought. Close-up photos revealed all sorts of surprises, from spherulites(?) and epidote patches to agate and quartz-filled veins:      

Spherulites? See next photo.
Outline of possible spherulites.
Tiny waterline agate in vein.
Intriguing quartz vein.
Dark hematite and white quartz.
Dark hematite and translucent quartz.
Patches and patterns.
Some green epidote in the mix?
Varying size of veins.
Tiny dark orbs?

Spherulites are balls of radiating needle-like crystals, and the radiating lines in the first small jasper above are very reminiscent of a certain type of spherulite. I’ve seen spherulites in rare specimens of rhyolite from Gemstone Beach and Slope Point though they have often had a tighter pattern than apparent in this small jasper. However, maybe these lines have been formed from a different process, I’m not sure.

I picked up two unusual trace fossil argillite stones. The first has raised traces, with one particularly long and sinuous one:

Trace fossils in argillite.

The second is opposite in character. Its traces are much more subtle and appear wispy, almost fern-like: 

Trace fossils in argillite.

This small green quartzite is of a type that can be found from time to time on Gemstone Beach, deeply colour by epidote – I love the details of fragmentation and veins:

Small green quartzite.
Other side of small green quartzite.

An Index to this Series of Posts is available here. The next Post describes a visit to Papatotara Beach (not yet available). 

June-July 2026 South Island Trip – Part 3, Four Breccia Finds, a Small Pinkie and a Tiny Poppy Jasper from Gemstone Beach, Monday 29 June

My first fossick on Gemstone Beach (Southland) this trip was with Chrissy and Ohla the dog.  We arrived a couple of hours after high tide, at 2.10pm, and left two and a half hours later. It was a sunny winter afternoon, the temperature was 10 degrees with a very light breeze. I wore a puffer jacket, woollen hat and scarf, and was very comfortable throughout. There were four vehicles in the carpark when we got there, one a camper van. 

Recent comments on social media have noted that over the last few months there’s been a lot of sand and not many stones on Gemstone Beach. That is still the case, in the main. We found that there were very few stones for the first 150 metres between the carpark and the Taunoa Stream, much of this area being completely bare sand. Then we encountered a 25 metre-wide patch of stones. A further section of sand, maybe 60 to 70 metres long, took us to a 25 metre band of stones running along the edge of the Taunoa Stream.

Gemstone Beach, looking southeast from the carpark.
Gemstone Beach, looking northwest from the carpark.
Sand on the beach, walking towards the Taunoa Stream.
Stones along the edge of the Taunoa Stream.
Taunoa Stream taking a direct course to the sea.
Looking back towards the carpark from the Taunoa Stream.
The house in the cliff.
Gemstone Beach stones, near the Taunoa Stream.
Gemstone Beach stones, near the Taunoa Stream.

The Taunoa Stream was running directly across the beach to the sea – it usually wanders a bit before getting there. Crossing was easy as even though the flow was fast, it was shallow. Walking northwest, the beach continued to be covered in stones for another 130 metres or so before the sand took over again.

From the Taunoa Stream to the Waimeamea River, sand dominated the beach apart from three large patches of stones. The first one (30 metres wide) was located about 150 metres along, the second one (maybe 35 metres wide) was a further 120 metres down the beach – it contained some larger stones (up to 12 cms) among the smaller ones. Just 15 metres on was the third patch 0f stones (20 metres wide) and then a long sandy stretch that could be 400 metres long, taking us to the start of the Waimeamea River lagoon (the first half of it dry and full of driftwood). A good patch of stones of maybe 250 metres then took us to the Waimeamea River itself. It was just possible to ford the river without taking our gumboots off. On the other side, continuous banks of stones stretched into the distance. 

Looking back from the other side of the Taunoa Stream as the stones start to thin out.
Chrissy at the second large patch of stones on the way to the Waimeamea River.
Ohla waiting patiently for Chrissy to move on from a patch of stones.
Chrissy on the beach near the start of the Waimeamea Lagoon.
The Waimeamea River flowing from the lagoon to the sea.
At the end of the fossick, looking back over the Taunoa Stream to the sun low in the sky.

As is often the case with my first fossicks on Gemstone Beach after being away for a while, I didn’t find a lot of outstanding interesting stones to put in my bag. It usually takes me two or three fossicks to get my eye used to the process of spotting really good ones. However, the low mid-winter sun and the shadows it cast among the stones didn’t help either! I saw very few hydrogrossular garnets though Chrissy spotted more, even one that I walked right past! She also found an interesting raised trace fossil stone that she kindly gave to me (photo below). I picked up one tiny jasper that could be a poppy. Among the more interesting stones were a number of breccia of different characters, and a small pink stone. Again as I usually do with a first fossick, I picked up a range of stones of types that I might not bother with in later fossicks. Altogether, I came away with about 75 finds, 14 of which are featured in this Post.   

This afternoon’s finds.
Tiny poppy jasper.
Chrissy found this trace fossil stone with raised traces.

A breccia stone consists of angular non-rounded fragments, sometimes from different sources, cemented together in a fine-grained matrix.  Following are four of the breccia I collected this afternoon. The first contains a diverse mix of fragments from different sources, making it a polymictic breccia. Some of the fragments are themselves quite complex in their composition:

Green polymictic breccia.

This second one is also polymictic:

Dark hued breccia.

A third breccia in which the fragments are more uniform, likely all coming from the type of rock, making this a monomictic breccia:   

Monomictic breccia.

The fourth and final breccia is distinctly monomictic, looking like it consists entirely of mudstone (argillite?) fragments:    

Monomictic brecciated argillite?

This is the unusual very small pink stone I found – it has a tiny white spot on one side and a tiny white patch outlined in dark red on the other:

Small pink stone with whote spot.
Other side of small pink stone.

Thulite and rhodonite, both being types of pink stones, are found on Gemstone Beach. This find is more uniform in colour than thulite usually is. 

Among my other finds were two trace fossil argillite stones and a nice sized rhyolite with thin dark red bands. In the first trace fossil stone, the traces are darker in colour than the host rock while in the second they are lighter:

Trace fossils in argillite.
Trace fossils in argillite.
Rhyolite.

Finally, four other finds with interesting tiny details to them – and I am unable to identify what kind of stones they are, though the green in three of them is likely to come from the mineral epidote:

The next Post is on my second fossick at Gemstone Beach. An Index to this Series of Posts is available here.

June-July 2026 South Island Trip – Part 2, A Bitterly Cold Kakanui Fossick, Thursday 25 June

I arrived at Seadown Beach, Kakanui, just south of Oamaru, on a bitterly cold afternoon – it was six degrees with a stiff southerly wind, and rain showers were threatening. My motel room was not quite yet available so I decided to spend half an hour on the beach, despite the conditions. I put on my big coat, my woollen scarf and hat, donned a pair of fingerless gloves, and ventured out. It was near high tide. There were very few stones on the beach.

Seadown Beach, Kakanui, on a cold afternoon, looking south.
Not many stones on the beach.
Looking north, in the direction I walked.
The scattering of stones I checked out as I walked north.

I walked north for maybe 400 metres, scanning some thinly scattered stones as well as the occasional patch, picking up one or two here and there. I passed a standing stone – limestone – that someone had recently erected. The very cold conditions didn’t encourage a long walk, so I turned around and headed back to the car. Just at that point, some freezing rain started to come down. So the second part of the fossick was definitely the coldest, walking into the wind and (light but cold) rain. I collected 18 hard-won finds, seven of which are featured below. Photos of them were taken the next morning, when the sun was still low in the sky.

Recently erected standing stone.
The dark clouds eventually delivered some freezing drops of rain.
My 18 finds this afternoon.

I always enjoy finding a fossiliferous limestone pebble, especially with varied small shell fossils in it:

Fossiliferous limestone.

Other examples of this kind of limestone from this beach can be found here and here.

One of the most common interesting stones here are yellow/orange quartzites. Here are two I collected:

Quartzite.
A second quartzite find.

And a quartzite of a different colour:

Quartzite.

I picked up two small hematite jaspers this afternoon, the most interesting one being the first of the two:

Small hematite jasper.
The second small hematite jasper.

Finally, a button of cloudy quartz, which turns out to be transparent when held up to the light:

Cloudy quartz.
Cloudy quartz held up to light.

After returning to the car and starting to thaw out, I decided to check out the new Kakanui bridge, mentioned in my Blog Post of 27 August 2025. A new single-lane structure has replaced the old one, its construction having disrupted traffic between the two parts of the town for a period. The local fire truck flashed its lights at me when I was spotted taking a photo from the north side of the new bridge (from well off the roadway). 

The new Kakanui bridge.
The old and the new bridges.
Local fire truck crossing the new Kakanui bridge.

Next stop will be the south coast of Southland.

An Index to this Series of Posts is available here. The next Post is on my first fossick this Trip on Gemstone Beach. 

June-July 2026 South Island Trip – Part 1, Six Finds from Ward Beach, Tuesday 23 June

I left home in Whanganui yesterday to catch a Bluebridge Cook Strait ferry in Wellington. The crossing was nice and smoooth, and during it I watched the All Whites World Cup football game against Egypt (the All Whites won the first half but lost the second, and the game). On this trip, I will be visiting favourite South Island beaches but have two other important tasks. Firstly, I will be working with Chrissy on an advanced draft of our book on the stones of Gemstone Beach. Secondly, I will be taking part in the Open Day of the Southland Geological and Lapidary Club in Invercargill on 11 July.

My first stop, as always, is Ward in Marlborough, checking into Ian and Ronnie’s Flaxbourne Motels for two nights. Unfortunately I just missed Lee and Shona, who I had previously met in March 2023 and again in March 2025 – they are going south to do some house-sitting in Canterbury. Today I visited Ward Beach for an hour at high tide, during a cool sunny afternoon with a stiff wind blowing. I walked south to the mouth of the Flaxbourne River and back, collecting 21 stones. I worked hard at not picking up too many as I am on my way south and they will be travelling all of the way with me. 

Ward Beach, looking south-west from the carpark.
The sea has eaten into the stone beach, leaving a steep drop in places. Looking north.
Ward Beach stones today – lots of good sized ones on the surface.
Ward Beach stones, wet from the waves.
Today’s collected 21.

 I visited at high tide because the larger stones, most suitable for tumble polishing, tend to be found (wet) at the high tide mark. Today there were lots of such stones there, more than usual it seemed, though the strong waves sweeping up the gravel meant I had to take care during the fossick. I didn’t want to get caught by a wave half way down the bank – and I didn’t.

Six of today’s finds are featured below. The first is the largest trace fossil (in limestone) I have seen on Ward Beach:    

Trace fossil in limestone.

The second is a small white stone (again limestone?) with dendrites, thin, branching lines of crystals, often of some variety of manganese oxide (or iron), that grow over a surface in a rock or mineral:     

Dendritic stone.

Four other examples of Ward Beach dendritic stones can be found here.

My third featured find is one I find fascinating, having collected a couple on previous fossicks (e.g., in February 2025) – the tiny white crystals in it are hardly discernable to the naked eye:    

Tiny white crystals.

I also found the following type of brecciated stone to be fascinating – it may be limestone. Brecciation refers to the fragmentation and re-cementing of a stone, often with something like quartz or chalcedony in the gaps:    

Brecciated limestone?

There’s an explanation of breccia at the start of this Post (in the discussion of Stone #6).

I collected the fifth featured stone because of the two different textures in it, arising from the different sizes of its black crystals – I find such a contrast to be interesting: 

I suspect the final stone is quartz with iron oxide colouring it. However it caught my eye because the colour seems muted:

I continue south tomorrow morning. My next fossick will be at Kakanui in North Otago. An Index to this Series of Posts can be found here.