Rocks sighted floating between the Tasman and Pacific
That's right - the earth's crust is a thin shell of light rock (mainly) that floats on the surface of the planet. All the cracks and fissures make it a bit more interesting because stuff comes up or goes down, and the changing pressures and temperatures transform ordinary stuff into a huge range of special items - like obsidian and quartz, or marble, or diamonds and rubies.
In short, our planet is a jewel-encrusted ball of lava.
Here are some links to what we have in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Aggregate and Quarry Association of New Zealand, Inc. A trade organisation.
GeoNet Project - monitoring geological hazards in New Zealand, with beautiful graphics and live data; report an earthquake here if you feel one.
Marble: - the nearest source for NZ appears to be Australia - see Marble in the World. New Zealand marbles may have all crumbled under pressure and during earthquakes.
Greenstone Historically important as a material for a great variety of stone tools and ornaments and ceremonial objects, greenstone (jade) is both an object of archaeological research (see Colin Merrony, in Sheffield for example) and a material for modern jewelery (e.g. see Kiwiartz.co.nz).
