Gillespie's Beach, Westland District, West Coast Region, New Zealandi

Regional Level Types
Gillespie's Beach	Beach
Westland District	District
West Coast Region	Region
New Zealand	Country

Beach sands.
Gillespie's Beach was one of several on the West Coast where gold rushes occurred in the 1860s. Diggers would pan for gold from the blacksand beaches. A gold dredge worked there from 1930 to 1945.

Gillespie's Beach is 21 kilometres west of Fox Glacier Village, in part the road is narrow gravel through rainforest covered hills.

This is a rare time we can talk about a type locality species for New Zealand, just don't expect top shelf specimens (or really any specimen when it comes to Huttonite from here). During World War Two, uranium was sought after from various parts of the country, however it was not economic enough to mine at Gillespie's. In 1950, New Zealand geologist Colin Osborne Hutton discovered a new mineral in concentrates from the beach, which was subsequently named Huttonite by A. Pabst who also studied the material.

Huttonite is found in beach sands as minute anhedral grains to 0.2 mm (possibly behind the beach as the foreshore consists of rounded stones). It is a thorium nesosilicate, and is uncommon worldwide. The material from Gillespie's Beach fluoresces a dull white. It is found associated with scheelite, cassiterite, zircon, uranothorite, ilmenite, and gold, also beach sand size. Historically, gold has been mined from the beach by individual miners.

Huttonite is found at other locations along the west coast of the South Island in lesser amounts including Saltwater Creek, Harihari, Five Mile Beach, Okarito, and Bruce Bay, always in beach sands, or fluvio-glacial deposits. It is suggested the material was eroded from alpine schist inland.

Gold was discovered in the beach sands by a prospector called Gillespie in 1865, sparking a rush. This soon died down to a few miners making wages with alluvial diggings, but continued to a greater or lesser degree until around 1920.

The Von Schmidt suction dredge arrived in 1891, built in Christchurch at a cost of £5,000, being shipped to the west coast by schooner. However the pump was unable to cope with the stones and buried timber in the sands. A more successful effort with a bucket dredge occurred between 1932 to 1945.

Gillespie's Beach is a rounded stone strewn windswept coastline, littered with driftwood. It is a fine example of how New Zealand promotes tourism, as even in this off the highway location, are information signs detailing historic mining in the area, and several walks. A restored miner's cemetery is a 5 minute walk; the remains of the Gillespie suction dredge is a 400 metre 15 minute walk; Gillespie bucket dredge 1.6 kilometre 30 minute walk;
the miner's tunnel track 1 hour 40 minutes 3.6 kilometres past the above dredge crossing a bridge at Gillespie Lagoon; and finally the 3.5 hour seal colony walk further north. On a fine day there are great views of Mount Cook from the beach.

Other Regions, Features and Areas containing this locality

References