Rare Stones of Aotearoa

Hydrogrossular garnet is one of New Zealand’s lesser-known geological treasures, found within the unusual calcium-rich rock known as rodingite. This episode explores the geology, discoveries and collecting history of New Zealand hydrogrossular and rodingite, following the places and people connected with these distinctive green, pink and reddish stones and the remarkable geological processes that created them.

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Gold changed New Zealand.

In this episode of Rare Stones of Aotearoa, we follow the discoveries, rushes and people that transformed the country during the nineteenth-century search for gold, from Otago and the West Coast to the Coromandel and beyond.

We look at the places where fortunes were made and lost, the settlements that appeared almost overnight, the miners who pushed into remote valleys and mountains, and the extraordinary finds that helped shape New Zealand’s history.

This is the story of gold in Aotearoa, the geology beneath it, the people who chased it, and the legacy the rushes left behind.

Read the full Gold story, research and sources:
https://rarestonesofaotearoa.com/gold-new-zealand/

Can amazonite really be found in New Zealand? A blue-green specimen in a university collection and a modern find in a West Coast river offer clues to a little known story.

In this episode of Rare Stones of Aotearoa, we explore the evidence for New Zealand amazonite, following historic specimen labels and newer records through the Greenstone–Hohonu area of Westland. What do these finds tell us and what remains uncertain?

A story of striking stones, overlooked records and the questions that make collecting so compelling.

Read the full New Zealand amazonite story, research and sources:
https://rarestonesofaotearoa.com/amazonite-new-zealand/

Sapphires are rarely associated with New Zealand, yet scattered discoveries from Southland to Nelson tell a remarkable and little-known story. This episode follows the sapphires of Orepuki and Richmond Flat, the people who first recorded them, and the geological clues that may explain where these elusive blue stones came from.

Read the full New Zealand sapphire story, research and sources:
https://rarestonesofaotearoa.com/sapphire-new-zealand/

Bowenite, known in Aotearoa as tangiwai, has a history that reaches far beyond geology. Found in the remote country around Piopiotahi Milford Sound and the Hollyford region, it was travelled for, traded and treasured long before European geologists gave the stone its mineralogical name. This episode follows the journeys to places such as Anita Bay and Poison Bay, the Māori routes used to reach sources of pounamu, and the later scientific story of the stone now known as bowenite.

Read the full Bowenite and Tangiwai story, research and sources:
https://rarestonesofaotearoa.com/bowenite-tangiwai-new-zealand/

In the mountains and valleys of Golden Bay, unusual coloured stones have been noticed, collected and valued for generations. Follow the stories, old reports and geological clues that lead to Obay polychrome schist and discover how bands of green, blue and brown became part of a much older story written into the landscape.

Read the full Obay Stone story, research and sources:
https://rarestonesofaotearoa.com/obay-stone-golden-bay/

In 1906, visitors to New Zealand’s West Coast encountered a striking green stone and confidently called it malachite. Others later called it amazonite. Neither name was right. Follow the old newspaper reports, river valleys and geological investigations that revealed Aotea as a rare rock of fuchsite, kyanite and quartz, and uncover a story of mistaken identities, surviving names and deep geological history written into stone.

Read the full Aotea Stone story, research and sources:https://rarestonesofaotearoa.com/aotea-stone-new-zealand/

In 1891, a miner on New Zealand’s West Coast pointed out an unusually hard boulder. Inside were rubies, the beginning of a geological mystery that has lasted more than a century. Follow the miners, geologists and scientists who tried to trace Goodletite back to its source, and discover how a strange green and red rock came to preserve a story of glaciers, vanished landscapes and extraordinary processes deep beneath the Southern Alps.

Read the full Goodletite story, research and sources:
https://rarestonesofaotearoa.com/goodletite-new-zealand/