FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[Philippe Durand]

Does anyone know if alpine clefts and so minerals exist in the New Zealand mountains ?
Quartz and fluorite, particularly, or any other type of mineralogical context in these mountains ?

I have never heard or read about it, but if you consider these great mountains, minerals are likely to be found.

[alfredo]

Alpine-type veins are typical of tightly folded metamorphic rocks, which are usually present in mountain ranges formed by continental collision, ie the Alps, Himalayas, Urals, Pyrenees, Appalachians. The "Pacific Rim" is mostly not conducive to this type of geology, for the most part.

[SteveB]

Except of course That's exactly how New Zealand was formed, check facts please before offering unqualified and useless opinion. NZ is on the Alpine Fault between the Pacific and the Australian plates.

Yes NZ is full of quartz veins including areas of metals such as gold and has its own jade-like Greenstone. Its South Island has extensive granite deposits and yes fluorite/barite deposits too.

There are extensive varieties of minerals in New Zealand but being predominantly forested and protectted finding is not easy. Digging especially not allowed except in few locations, most of the native wildlife is endangered so they are not keen on people showing up and destroying the environment.

[alfredo]

Steve, you're confusing two different questions, or one question with two parts. The first, which I was answering, was about the existence of alpine-type veins in New Zealand and the second was about minerals in general in New Zealand, specifically mentioning fluorite. Yes, we all know New Zealand has lots of minerals, including nice fluorites - You can see photos of some on Mindat: https://www.mindat.org/gallery.php?loc=15576&min=1576 - but those have no connection to alpine veins.

And much of New Zealand's collision history is that between a continent (Australia) and an oceanic plate (the Pacific), not two continents, which is what you need for the classic alpine-type vein development for the other mountain ranges I listed. And the Alpine Fault in the South Island shows mostly right lateral (horizontal) movement, like the San Andreas fault in California, no connection to alpine-type veins.

Yes, there may well be some meager development of alpine-type veins in the Southern Alps but, because of the lack of the classic tectonic environment for such veins, one can expect them to be quite impoverished compared to the alpine veins in the European Alps, Urals, Himalayas, etc. New Zealand's mineral riches come from other types of environments.

[SteveB]

Perhaps a contextual difference in our education then. NZ is bloody crinkly and on appearance pretty similar to european Alps and asian Himalayas. Also in the context of the original questions , yes there is much mineral wealth in New Zealand mountains, perhaps the reason why so little is heard is its not exploited.unlike other areas where the natives were enslaved or underpaid to mine for wealth of civilised nations, The maoris of NZ would just smash the skull of anyone trying that sort of behaviour and when civilsation did arrive it was the natural riches of the islands that it had going for it. Plus such a distance for ships to travel on the possibility of wealth. By the time an invading force arrived there they would be weak and sick from the journey and from the beach all of NZ is uphill with large stocky native warriors to contend with. Was little profit at the time. similarly Papua New Guinea has its dificulties with rainforest mountains and has mining riches that have been hard founght to mine. Think about war movies, combat fought in jungle locations is treacherous, no nice paved roads and trails to follow whereas the Americas came with legends of el dorado and promises of vast easy wealth in lost cities. New Zealand and the like had no such city cultures with the native inhabitants and there personal signs of wealth were rare shell and feathers rather than the gemstones westoners would look for. You also have these cultures who havent developed metallurgy unlinke european cultures where trade of goods and knowledge was easier to spread so Moaris didnt go digging everywhere looking for iron ore before white men arrived only a few hundred years ago. Without the local knowledge the white man had to make the journey and go look, possibly against the wishes of the locals....so too hard basket? Its not that its unkonown if NZ has minerals its more a matter of access to its surface that much of it is still pristine so litlle is known for certain and not as hyped as other areas with more accessibility and so more visitors to spread the word.

I'm more inclined to contemplatesome of the newer volcanic landforms around around japan and what may have been brought up from the mantle .

[Philippe Durand]

Thank you both :)

I will try to summarize.

So, I understand that there are not any Alpine clefts; but a lot of minerals exist surely but they are not extracted, because the lack of mines, or people searching for them.
History and Culture are the main reasons.

And on Mindat there is not a wealth of minerals if you compare to other countries. So there is room here for discoveries in the future

[Matt_Zukowski]

Steve: IMHO, you should apologize to Alfredo. He most certainly did not need to "check facts please before offering unqualified and useless opinion." I think that any reasonable reading of the original post is that the question is whether NZ has alpine cleft geology, the kind that produces the lovely quartz and fluorite that comes out of alpine clefts. Alfredo's answer to this question was both qualified and useful, as is always the case with Alfredo.

[Tobi]

[vic rzonca]

[Jordi Fabre]

[Pierre Joubert]

I find it strange that the inhabitants of NZ seem to have very little interest in finding out what secrets (minerals) these mountains hold.

[Don Lum]

[Don Lum]

[Don Lum]

[Pierre Joubert]