Backyard Kauri Gum Hunting

[NZ_Fossil_Collecta]

(please note: i do not know for sure that it is Kauri gum but given the location, smell, and look, it is quite likely)

today i went hunting in the backyard for Kauri gum. hunting in a backyard is not your usual fossil trip, and although it is close to home (and refreshments) it has it's own set of cons too.

PROS:

-local

-easy to hunt in

-it's on your property; you don't have to worry about a fossil being snapped up while you're away

CONS:

-you can't dig

- very limited area

anyways, basically what i do is crawl around the yard looking for exposed pieces of gum. these are given away by the pale oxidized surface. the reason the gum is so close to the surface is because when the house was built, the builders had to dig up a lot of the land, then flatten it back down to form the yard, so my digging was done for me. the annoying thing is some of the gum is milky and opaque with only small portions of it clear (which, for me hunting for inclusions, is no good at all) i found some small, rather clear pieces and one seems to have some sort of inclusion although i do not know whether it is insect or not. based on what i have read on the internet, this is the copal variety of the gum, at least a few thousand years old (although probably more) which puts it in the sub-fossil category (still worth collecting to me). below is a picture of some of the un-prepped nuggets i found. if one yields inclusions i will post a picture of that in a separate thread.

happy fossiling

[t-tree]

Hi NZ....A work pal of mine has just got back to the UK from a month in Auckland he was staying with relations on there farm/small holding and he picked these up off there land and brought it back for me(he knows i collect fossils).

Kauri Gum

I will be polishing some windows in both pieces to see if there is anything in them and i'll post some pics if there is.

Cheers John

Edited March 7, 2014 by t-tree

[6ix]

I have a few pieces I found up north as a kid on the dairy farm and on some old gum fields - hadnt thought to look in them for inclusions..