Background and history
The Nelson-Tasman GeoClub was established in 2026 to succeed the Nelson Rock and Mineral Club and continue its long tradition, since its founding in 1965, of encouraging interest in rocks and minerals in the Nelson area. A summary of the history of the NRMC can be found here.
As defined in its charter, the GeoClub is an open and participatory group aimed at encouraging and promoting interest in the Earth Sciences across the Nelson and Tasman region. It covers all areas of geology and geomorphology, and the associated environmental sciences (e.g. climate science) and acts as an umbrella group for sub-groups of members with specific interests in all these areas – e.g. rocks, fossils, minerals, landscapes, natural hazards, geological history.
It runs a varied and flexible programme of meetings, discussion sessions and field trips, open to all paid-up members and invites attendance to specific events to non-members as guests. It maintains a small and selective regional collection of rocks, minerals and fossils, and seeks to build up on-line materials (e.g. reports, photographs, data sets) documenting and giving virtual access to geoscientific phenomena in the region. It also seek collaboration and co-operation with other cognate groups both locally and more widely – e.g. the Geoscience Society, Nelson Institute, Nelson Science Society and the Australasian Institute of Mining and Mineralogy (Aus-IMM).
Within its capability, the GeoClub provides a help and information service to the public on relevant aspects of geoscience (e.g. identification of rocks, fossils, minerals and landforms).
Crucially and fundamentally, the GeoClub has an ethos of sustainable and socially and environmentally ethical study of geoscientific phenomena. It therefore does NOT condone indiscriminate collecting of geological materials; nor, in its own right, does the club conduct or facilitate trade for money of geological specimens.
The GeoClub is NOT an incorporated society and, in keeping with its democratic ethos, all members bear full liability for their own actions within the club and their consequences. People joining the do so in the knowledge of that responsibility.
A copy of the GeoClub's charter can be found here.
Code of Conduct
The GeoClub operates a strict code of conduct during all its meetings and field trips. This is aimed at ensuring the safety of participants and members of the public, avoiding damage to property, and protecting the geological value and integrity of all field sites. The Code applies to members both when on GeoClub excursions and on privately organised geological field trips.
A copy can be dowloaded here.
A copy can be dowloaded here.
An early field outing of NRMC members.
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Nelson Rock and Mineral Club
The Nelson area is intimately associated with the search for minerals, and it was a group of older prospectors, who had looked for gold during the Depression of the 1930s, who became the catalyst for the formation of the Nelson Rock and Mineral Club. At the first meeting, in the 1960s, 47 people turned up, though it was not until 1965 that the Club became an incorporated society, and membership stabilised. One of the Club's early ambitions was to obtain miners' rights for a gold claim in the Wangapeka area. After this failed, the Club began to focus more generally on mineral collecting and lapidary. In more recent years, its scope has widened further, and the Club now has active interest not just in rocks and minerals, but micro-minerals, fossils and geological history and mapping. The Club was dissolved in 2026 when it was decided, for administrative reasons, no longer to operate as an incorporated society. Its successor club, Nelson-Tasman GeoClub has inherited NRMC's rock and mineral collection, and most aspects of its purpose and ethos. For the Nelson Rock and Mineral Club's Fiftieth Anniversary, one of its long-term members, Sheila Hardwick, compiled a history of the club. To obtain a copy, click on the button below. |