Well it seems some people have been struggling to find what's down phillip island and I know they are there because I've found them since I was very young. Though it seems my eyes have ages as we dig not pick up the little crystals litke amethyst or citrine plates unfortunately, mabey next time.
Our location today I can share with all which is nice for a change, we met up in Pakenham and headed down to the island to Kitty Miller bay, and oh what a wonderful site the sea is when you live out bush. I got to take my daughters for xmas last year but it was difficult to prospect, mostly because of the long walks from one bay to another around the cliffs.
( sorry again for broken split vids, pause didn't work, it just saved and started a new recording...stupid. You also can't hear too well what I'm saying in this vid due to wind but pointing to where we are digging, which is along the intruding dykes within the volcanic basalts )
[video=480,360]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zq5s7QCYP0Q[/video]
Even though we flipped the pan to decide which way to walk first, I hadn't been right for years so we headed to the eastmost point of the bay to where amazing volcanic column sit at waters edge, a large rock bar before it which holds our finds and behind it more volcanics with two dykes, a fine grained browny cream intrusion which holds the source of chalcedony and some calcite. I climbed up the cliff face to inspect the dyke up high and close, and up high I was standing on a mega incline..I'm sure the surfers were waiting for me to fall the 30ft drop..
If you look closely at the image, you will see the small stepping cut out which was 30cm of foot room to stand on the decaying face to inspect the source.
We made it just past the corner to the second dyke, they both head east-west in direction, the second outcropping much more noticable than the first. At this end of the beach just behind the basalt columns, you can clearly see AT LOW TIDE that there is what's left of the erroded strata going out to the ocean and inspecting it, you will notice basalt flow settled ipon top of the dyke and country rock. Very distinctive and closer inspection of the lower and you will find the chalcedony veins with eye-agates like little peanut m&m's which you can pry out the soft rock. Not only is the host rock delicate, but so is the egg agate itself as these are smaller closer to the shore as I show here.
[video=480,360]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wail8QpFlXA[/video]
After digging all around the large rocks, small rocks, at ocean tide level or high up at the grass, the fibds are everywhere but hard to see for the untrained eye. I picked sone samples up as soon as I could to show dylan what to look for ( which did take a while )and he was on his way too with finds, followed by a nice gash to the finger by that nice soft volcanic rock..
12:30 was high tide and by the time we were done on the east, we grabbed our finds and headed to the west side of the bay for more as east had not given us the best at high tide ( we couldn't prevent this, wrong day basically ). The finds were more obvious here as white clear chacedony showed, followed by what I call 'the agates' but don't exactly know what they are composed of. A mixture indeed. We walked the stretch of pebbles and boulders hoping to find our big scores which are amethyst or citrine plates I've found before there but we instead found a lot of the agates which have circles and white mixed into then, sometimes a cavity already exposed in the eggs as well.
[video=480,360]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_qSG2mosN4[/video]
To the west is another dyke and also an obvious red landform, a shipwreck past the next cliff a fair distance which we didn't make it to. Theres an amazing formation on the wall there with giant sandstone type eggs and the geology looked amazing
After big walks n digging, sore fingers ( especially dylan ), bags full to the point of breaking ( which one did luckily at the end ) we decide to slowly pace back to the car picking up more along the way. Whew. Will post finds in the morning as my lighting sucks at night sorry but tgeres 2 big bags full of chalcedony, egg agates, agate, coral, limestone, olivine ( very small ) and a few others. Thank you for reading my posts, this will help anyone who is struggling to find phillip island rocks minerals and gemstones or other beaches as well elsewhere.
As we drove off, a friend scurried across the road in time:
Another great dig with dylan of course, had a ball and his company is awesome, that's 2 weekends I've done 3 days in a row of digging. Phew.
Our location today I can share with all which is nice for a change, we met up in Pakenham and headed down to the island to Kitty Miller bay, and oh what a wonderful site the sea is when you live out bush. I got to take my daughters for xmas last year but it was difficult to prospect, mostly because of the long walks from one bay to another around the cliffs.
( sorry again for broken split vids, pause didn't work, it just saved and started a new recording...stupid. You also can't hear too well what I'm saying in this vid due to wind but pointing to where we are digging, which is along the intruding dykes within the volcanic basalts )
[video=480,360]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zq5s7QCYP0Q[/video]
Even though we flipped the pan to decide which way to walk first, I hadn't been right for years so we headed to the eastmost point of the bay to where amazing volcanic column sit at waters edge, a large rock bar before it which holds our finds and behind it more volcanics with two dykes, a fine grained browny cream intrusion which holds the source of chalcedony and some calcite. I climbed up the cliff face to inspect the dyke up high and close, and up high I was standing on a mega incline..I'm sure the surfers were waiting for me to fall the 30ft drop..
If you look closely at the image, you will see the small stepping cut out which was 30cm of foot room to stand on the decaying face to inspect the source.
We made it just past the corner to the second dyke, they both head east-west in direction, the second outcropping much more noticable than the first. At this end of the beach just behind the basalt columns, you can clearly see AT LOW TIDE that there is what's left of the erroded strata going out to the ocean and inspecting it, you will notice basalt flow settled ipon top of the dyke and country rock. Very distinctive and closer inspection of the lower and you will find the chalcedony veins with eye-agates like little peanut m&m's which you can pry out the soft rock. Not only is the host rock delicate, but so is the egg agate itself as these are smaller closer to the shore as I show here.
[video=480,360]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wail8QpFlXA[/video]
After digging all around the large rocks, small rocks, at ocean tide level or high up at the grass, the fibds are everywhere but hard to see for the untrained eye. I picked sone samples up as soon as I could to show dylan what to look for ( which did take a while )and he was on his way too with finds, followed by a nice gash to the finger by that nice soft volcanic rock..
12:30 was high tide and by the time we were done on the east, we grabbed our finds and headed to the west side of the bay for more as east had not given us the best at high tide ( we couldn't prevent this, wrong day basically ). The finds were more obvious here as white clear chacedony showed, followed by what I call 'the agates' but don't exactly know what they are composed of. A mixture indeed. We walked the stretch of pebbles and boulders hoping to find our big scores which are amethyst or citrine plates I've found before there but we instead found a lot of the agates which have circles and white mixed into then, sometimes a cavity already exposed in the eggs as well.
[video=480,360]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_qSG2mosN4[/video]
To the west is another dyke and also an obvious red landform, a shipwreck past the next cliff a fair distance which we didn't make it to. Theres an amazing formation on the wall there with giant sandstone type eggs and the geology looked amazing
After big walks n digging, sore fingers ( especially dylan ), bags full to the point of breaking ( which one did luckily at the end ) we decide to slowly pace back to the car picking up more along the way. Whew. Will post finds in the morning as my lighting sucks at night sorry but tgeres 2 big bags full of chalcedony, egg agates, agate, coral, limestone, olivine ( very small ) and a few others. Thank you for reading my posts, this will help anyone who is struggling to find phillip island rocks minerals and gemstones or other beaches as well elsewhere.
As we drove off, a friend scurried across the road in time:
Another great dig with dylan of course, had a ball and his company is awesome, that's 2 weekends I've done 3 days in a row of digging. Phew.
