A Castlecliff man has found a piece of earth he believes dates back potentially hundreds of millions of years.
Potonga Neilson was at the beach halfway between Castlecliff and Mowhanau when he found a chunk of what he believes is a "bit of mud flat".
Mr Neilson speculated it dated back to when New Zealand was part of Gondwanaland, one of two super-continents that existed some 600 million years ago. Gondwanaland began breaking up about 180 million years ago.
Mr Neilson said the chunk came from 40 metres down an 80m cliff along the beach.
"Obviously either the sea level has dropped or the land has raised up," he said.
"By pure speculation it would put us back in Gondwanaland.
"I've never seen anything like that come down off the cliffs before . . . I take an interest in these sort of things."
He said the chunk "definitely came from a long time ago" and he was thinking of contacting the museum about his find, though he feared it would disintegrate once it dried out properly.