Hi everyone,
Our next field trip will be a get-together at the Lake Burbury campground on 23 Nov 2024.
How to get there
Lake Burbury Camping Ground is approximately 20 minutes east of Queenstown on the Lyell Hwy, on the north side of the road. It has barbecues and toilets, and camping is $10 per vehicle, cash only, payable at the caretaker’s house.
The main activity will be a daytrip to look for Darwin Glass near Ten Mile Hill / Nora River, on the Saturday.
What is Darwin Glass? I’m glad you asked. Darwin Glass is a meteorite impact glass, created by the melting of the ground and part of the meteorite when it hit in the area of the Darwin Crater approximately 800,000 years ago.
The heat of the blast instantly melted and ejected a bunch of ground rock as glass, which then landed mostly to the west of the crater, and also melted surface material on the ground. It ranges in colour from pale green to black, and the darker the glass, the more meteorite iron it is hypothesised to contain.
Most areas over 500 m elevation contain little or no glass, as it is thought to have been scoured clean by glacial ice.
Gear
You can find small pieces laying on the surface of some of the roads in the area, but we will be heading to a spot to dig in older gravels. A pick, long-handled shovel and large spray bottle will be handy.
There is no water in the area, and the gravel is covered in mud, so spraying the dug material with a backpack sprayer or similar will allow you to find more glass. Otherwise you’ll be trying to speck in stuff others have dug that has been rained-on since.
2025 AGM and March trip to Weldborough
You can save the dates of 8th-9th of February in your calendar, when we will host our 2025 AGM, and 8th-9th of March for a trip to Weldborough to look for sapphires.
