I arrived at Gemstone Beach this morning to the sight of another vehicle stuck in soft sand, although the driver managed to get it out soon after by the judicious use of driftwood under the wheels. At 11 am I met up with Raelene Inglis, a member of the Facebook Group “New Zealand Lapidary, Rocks, Minerals, Fossils”. She had contacted me as she was going to visit Gemstone Beach today. She had also read a number of my blog posts about fossicking beaches in the South Island and had recently visited Seadown Beach at Kakanui. The tide was low and the weather was good, and we spent some time walking along the beach and discussing stones such as hydrogrossular garnets and argillite.
I then proceeded alone past the Waimeamea River, using the lagoon crossing. The bank of stones on the west side of the river, in front of the lagoon, has been made noticeably steeper by the waves over the past few days, and there was more sand and slightly fewer stones at the waves’ edge (see photo above). After turning around and making the lagoon crossing again, I met Chrissy from The Cliffs and we fossicked our way back to the carpark. All in all, I spent nearly five hours on the beach searching for stones to tumble polish, and arrived back at my accommodation with one of my larger hauls of finds this year. It proved difficult to select the 15 stones that feature in this Post because so many of my finds were interesting.
On the beach, I couldn’t really see what the tiny features in this stone were, though I knew there was a possibility they would be interesting. I now think this is orbicular rhyolite – I found one a few days ago at Slope Point with larger orbs.
This is a small (2.5 cm long) amygdaloidal stone, a volcanic stone with small gas bubbles which were then infilled by some minerals. The shapes of the amygdales and the colour of the infill make for a gorgeous little pebble:
The third stone is a brecciated one, caramel and cream (4 cm long):
I found another nice small pink thulite (2 cm long) as well as a slightly larger intense pink/purple stone, maybe thulite as well:
Three different breccia stones, two of them with breccia in veins:
Some of the stones above have green in them, mostly due to the presence of epidote. The ninth and tenth stones are two more “greenies”, both intensely coloured:
Two stones that I think have a volcanic origin:
The final three stones are: an interesting kind of trace fossil stone – maybe banded argillite; a stone that I thought was volcanic but it could be made of brecciated fragments and be metamorphic; and a stone with what looks like a layer of iron oxide on top:
This will be my third last fossick at Gemstone Beach/Te Waewae Bay for this trip.
The first Post in the “Southern Sojourn 2023” Series is here. The Index to the Series is here.
TumbleStone 
Ooooooh that amygdaloidal stone is so very pretty!! Spectacular find!
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