Long Point, Greenhills, Invercargill City, Southland Region, New Zealandi

Regional Level Types
Long Point	Point
Greenhills	Village
Invercargill City	City
Southland Region	Region
New Zealand	Country

Quartz crystals were mined at the site during World War Two for use in electronics.

Quartz crystals occur in a vein and stringers off the main vein in coarse soft sandstone. Individual and clusters of crystals are found in mud, and needs to be sieved to locate. Some are covered by dustings of chlorite. Occasionally a chunk of quartz will show bright green slender epidote crystals radiating through it. All the quartz crystals have a small facet below the predominant rhombohedron termination, and prism face to the lower corner, as a left handed trigonal pyramid. There are several other small veins in the area, but they have not yielded any quartz crystals over 1 cm. Quartz gravels occur in the area.

It appears Invercargill collectors became aware of the location in the late 1960's to early 1970's, when rock collecting began to take off. Initially large chunks of quartz could be found on the surface, and broken open to reveal quartz lined cavities. As these disappeared, a number of people were digging holes at the location. One is noted below.

Stan Hamilton of Invercargill was given permission to dig through the mud for quartz crystals, we think probably the late 1960's or early 1970's, by DOC, as long as he only used a pick and shovel. DOC were surprised, when they found Stan had dug a huge hole with the hand tools, and threatened to close down operations. He was allowed to continue as long as the hole was refilled after. The site is intertidal, and mullock from the hole had to be stacked on the seaward side to prevent it being swamped at high tide.

Long Point appears to be a local name. The location is described as half a mile across the mud flats east of Greenhills, at the northern end of Bluff Harbour, reached off Colyers Island Road.

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