I Dig Nz Amber

[NZ_Fossil_Collecta]

went and visited the amber site down in huntly today, it's a barely known site that's partially fenced off. basically it's a exposed coal layer (apparently eocene; must have gone through quite a bit of compression as it was shiny and hard coal at that). part is fenced off as i mentioned earlier but it still leaves you with enough of the coal layer to dig for amber. the amber is found in the actual coal itself and tints green under sunlight. rarely pieces larger than a NZ$ ten cent coin are found but i did find a couple about ~5 cm long and ~3 wide, they were the absolute minority though. huntly is known for its coal but somehow not the amber in the coal. in fact barely a soul knows about the place and i only caught wind of it because a fossick-ing friend of mine happened to drive past the place and decided to stop because it just looked interesting. i honestly don't think theres any inclusions, at least not in the smaller pieces.

if you're living in new zealand send me a PM if you want a free piece (only while i have some spares. won't be giving out more than five or six small pieces) or if you want to know the actual location of the place you can PM me too.

below are some pictures of the site and some pictures of the "medium-large" sized pieces. i'll post some more pics on here when i've actually polished the larger pieces.

Edited July 27, 2014 by NZ_Fossil_Collecta

[Carcharodontosaurus]

Nice finds. Good to see that you have collected some of your own amber.

[Paleoworld-101]

Very cool! After not finding any in Tassie you've certainly been rewarded with these great finds- well done. Persistence pays off

Is the site and it's amber the subject/mentioned in any scientific literature?

[NZ_Fossil_Collecta]

To be honest I don't know but I doubt it

[NZ_Fossil_Collecta]

Very cool! After not finding any in Tassie you've certainly been rewarded with these great finds- well done. Persistence pays off

Is the site and it's amber the subject/mentioned in any scientific literature?

It's not on the FRED database either- and there's a bajillion microfossil sites listed on there too

[Paleoworld-101]

Interesting, could it be worth mentioning to local experts? You never know it could be new and significant.

[NZ_Fossil_Collecta]

i've just mentioned it to GNS science

[Fangio44]

Btw - several years ago I visited Huntly East coal mine to fix some machinery. While underground I noticed a big chunk of Amber in the coal rib. I got a screwdriver and levered it out. It was about as big as a grapefruit. Very angular, yellow translucent with some small critters in parts of it. The whole place was had this stuff scattered around in the coal ribs.

[NZ_Fossil_Collecta]

Btw - several years ago I visited Huntly East coal mine to fix some machinery. While underground I noticed a big chunk of Amber in the coal rib. I got a screwdriver and levered it out. It was about as big as a grapefruit. Very angular, yellow translucent with some small critters in parts of it. The whole place was had this stuff scattered around in the coal ribs.

WOW.... did you get it checked by experts or something? That sounds amazing!