WELLINGTON, April 5 (Xinhua) -- Tiny flecks of gold, long overlooked during New Zealand's gold rush, have been discovered along New Zealand's South Island beaches in remarkable detail.

Using electron microscopes, researchers have created the world's first comprehensive atlas of beach gold, capturing high-resolution images of these minuscule particles -- some as small as 10 micrometers, a fifth the width of a human hair, said a study published on Saturday.

Collected from a range of geological and coastal environments, the gold samples reveal varied shapes formed as the particles were carried downstream by rivers to the coast, according to the University of Otago researchers.

In some areas, like Southland's Foveaux Strait, wind has further sculpted the gold into distinctive ring-like forms, said the study published in the New Zealand Journal of Geology and Geophysics.

Typically ranging from 50 to 200 micrometers in size, these gold fragments offer valuable insights for scholars studying similar beach deposits around the world, the researchers said.

"The point of the study was to look at this horribly fine-grained stuff that nearly everyone ignores at the beaches around the South Island," said the study's author, Emeritus Professor Dave Craw, Geology Department, University of Otago.

"There has been some mining (West Coast) but saving the fine gold is really hard for the miners. And it is unlikely that people will see any," Craw said, adding, "Even with a gold pan, the fine gold floats on the surface tension of water and a lot of it is lost." Enditem

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