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Update: 28.01.23

Copyright Dr. Eng. Jan Pająk



Img.587 from Tapanui (#5)

Img.587 (#5) The "china stone" from Roxburgh. It is displayed by the Town Hall of that former gold-mining township. It represents a lump of soil melted by heat of the Tapanui explosion. In order to arrive at Roxburgh from the Tapanui Crater it needed to fly over 50 kilometres in the extremely heated air. This explains its aerodynamic shape.

Note the plate cemented under it. This plate tells the story of a whole pocket of gold nuggets and gold sand that was found lying on the surface of this stone. Because of this gold find, the stone become famous. But almost no-one looking at that china stone wonders where this gold originated from. After all, in order to be deposited on the upper surface of this stone, the gold needed to "fall from the sky". Similarly gold which constituted the New Zealand "golden fleece" must also "fall from the sky". This New Zealand "golden fleece" was simply formed from deposits of gold sand and gold nuggets that in past covered the surface of the ground in the entire area of post-explosive fallouts from the Tapanui explosion. This gold needed to be synthesised in the air by some extreme conditions of the super-powerful explosion similar to a thermonuclear explosion, means such as the Tapanui explosion. After falling to the ground this "golden fleece" later become a reason for the "gold rush" that gripped New Zealand in the last part of 19th century and at the beginning of 20th century.

Such "china stones" were splashed radially from the Tapanui Crater. They are simply big lumps of baked clay and soil lifted into the air by the power of explosion, then melted and aerodynamicaly shaped during the flight in hot air, and hardened after falling to the ground. The largest of these stones tend to be spread along the east edge of the post-explosion fallouts (the west edge tends to have the fine "trinitite" deposits - see item #E2. from the website Tapanui), probably because of the clay and soil configurations inside the Crater. Some "china stones" splashed from the Tapanui Crater flew as far as the town of Hokitika, located around 400 kilometres away from the crater. China stones display aerodynamic shapes and their properties correspond to those of lumps of china.

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