Rob's GeoWorld

Hi all I owe Marcia a big hug and a kiss. She has outdone herself for which I am eternally grateful. Rob

Hear! Hear! k, Rob, let's hear all about your neck of the woods!

It's about time. I wish I had suggested it earlier. Shall I post your Krakatoa paper or shall you? It is just one of the wondeful things Rob wrote which should be preserved for all time on the internet of knowledge. *HUGS* YOU are now world famous!

Hi all Okay I will give some geographical statistics about New Zealand for you. We are a nation of about 270,000 square kilometres in size. Our longest river is the Waikato 425km and the biggest (by volume of flow)is the Clutha - average is 650 cubic metres per second. Our highest mountain is Mount Cook and is 12,300 feet above sea level in the Mount Cook National Park. The highest volcano is Mount Ruapehu 9,175 feet with a lake in the crater. Our two largest lakes are Lake Taupo 616 square kilometres in size and Lake Te Anau 322 square kilometres in size. The former is in the Taupo volcano caldera and the latter is a large lake carved out by glaciers. If Marcia could post the NZ map in here I can use it to explain the layout of the country and so on as well as go over some of the more niggly things. Rob

Since I cannot ftp this map I will borrow it for Rob:

Hi all I am giving you this link to the flag of New Zealand as it should appear. This is not the same one that is flown sometimes with a red backdrop. That particular flag is The New Zealand Red Ensign. For the Flag of New Zealand go here: http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/images/n/nz.gif And the defacto flag as seen at all big sports events and tipped by some to be the new New Zealand flag should the present one be replaced: http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/images/n/nz!sfern.gif Rob

Hi all This is a full account of Robs trip down the West Coast of the South Island, January 26-February 1. NOTE: Every second paragraph will explain where on the map we went. Because most of the places we stayed at on the map are left out I need to indicate them. I left home with Mum on Saturday January 26 to go to Omarama on the first leg of a trip covering 2000km and 4 provinces of New Zealand - Canterbury, Otago, Southland and Westland. It was in cloudy conditions that we left home heading southwest. Stops were had at Geraldine in rural Canterbury, where gentle rolling hill country dominates, and at Tekapo, a town in the McKenzie Basin on the shores of Lake Tekapo. We drove past Ohau A powerstation where a fault is displacing the generator hall and offsetting the four generators. At Omarama we overnighted and the following day we continued on to Te Anau where we were scheduled to meet Dad and Craig, who were walking the Kepler Track in Fiordland National Park. On the map we left Christchurch heading southwest and turned inland near Ashburton (road not marked). We headed inland to Geraldine where the road going inland from Timaru and the one also going inland from south of Ashburton meet. Omarama is further inland at the intersection of the road heading southeast to Oamaru and the one going toward Queenstown. The second day's travelling was south to Queenstown, then around the shore of Lake Wakatipu and onto the road intersection northwest of Gore. You can see Te Anau on the shores of the big lake that actually goes by the same name. We met Dad and Craig and had dinner watching the New Zealanders confront South Africa in a cricket One Day International on television - cool. We lost that game by the way. The following day, Craig drove home to Christchurch and Mum, Dad and I set off for Wanaka (road to West Coast runs between Lake Wanaka and Lake Hawea)where we would stay the night and stopped at Cardrona Hotel (originally founded in 1860s for a beer which quite surprisingly (middle of Otago)supplied Canterbury Draught. Even more surprising and hilarious was a fence line of bras with sign on a post behind the fence saying "In support of Roys last stand". The road from Wanaka to Haast goes between the two lakes and Haast is near the coast on the West Coast side of the Southern Alps. Northeast of Haast is Fox and Franz Josef and they are almost due north of Mount Cook (the road to Mount Cook is the near straight one going straight into the mountains and stopping abruptly). The Fault tour began in earnest on January 29, the day we crossed into Westland. Our first port of call was the Alpine Fault at Snapshot Creek near Haast where the road and the creek cross the fault in about the same place. It was not visible though and only shown on the geology map of the area that Dad brought with him. Further south in the Jacksons River valley the fault dominates the geology and controls the valley, meaning the fault is responsible for the physical layout. We drove to Franz Josef where we would spend two nights and the Motor Camp/is ON the fault. Although not visible on the surface, except from the air, I recalled the geology map of the area at University showing that a large fault ran STRAIGHT THROUGH THE MOTOR CAMP. The town of Franz Josef is in the most unenviable position possible sitting literally on top of the fault (runs through the service station forecourt), and across the river in the general vicinity of a nice old church on the banks of the Waiho River. On January 30 we took a flight over the glaciers and the township which showed a fault clearly crossing the foot of the Southern Alps in the vicinity of both Fox and Franz Josef. That night I took photographs of a couple places within the camping ground where I thought the fault ran. The following day we drove to Punakaiki on the coast and away from the faultline, into an area of marine geology where sedimentary rocks from under the sea were being raised. On February 1, while on the way home to Christchurch we drove to Inangahua, ground zero for a magnitude 7.0 event in 1968. A fault trace was clearly visible after the earthquake but 33 years of erosion and human activity had hidden any sign of it's existence. Further on we stopped one last time atop the Alpine Fault in a field near Springs Junction where a concrete slab wall had been built to monitor offset on the fault. Nothing has changed because the fault has a near vertical plane and the rocks under the surface are therefore locked in place. Only a big earthquake will unlock hem. Finally east of the Southern Alps we followed the Hope Fault down the Waiau River valley to the Hanmer Springs turn-off. All in all a great trip. Rob

What a fabulous trip, Rob! Thanks for sharing it with us. Flying geology lessons seem to be the most memorable. Yours definitly was! When you can manage to scan some photos I'd be delighted to ftp them to Spring so you can post them! NEW ZEALAND INSTITUTE OF GEOLOGICAL & NUCLEAR SCIENCES LTD. The following earthquake has been recorded by the Institute Reference number: 1844277/G Universal Time: 2002 February 10 0200 NZ Daylight Time: 2002 February 10 3.00 p.m. Latitude, Longitude: 38.87�S 175.63�E Location: 20 km north-west of Turangi Focal depth: 5 km Richter magnitude: 4.0 Likely to have been felt along the western shore of Lake Taupo.

Very nice and interesting trip Rob. It reminds me similar explorations when I was younger. I wondered for what is under our foot and how it was formed. It reminds me also, the recent geological activity in the area of the Thessaly lowland. Suddenly on 1991, big faults became visible on the surface and they continue until today to southwest direction. They are included in a triangle with about 80 km per each side. They became also uplifts and down lifts inside the triangle. I go along the faults and I measure the radioactivity background when I can. It is very interesting to me even if I have not studied someone of the earth sciences. Greek geologists and seismologists says that this phenomenon is result of the over pumping water in this area. But I think that it is the extension of the Anatolian fault through central Greece to Ionian Sea fault. I emphasize the seismic quietness since 1953 in this area when we had a 7.2R EQ in the west border of the triangle. John

Over punping of water does not cause such large deformations of the land, usually. In California there is both pumping and injecting of water into faults whihc result in series of small (very small) earthquakes from time to time. Never has there been such upthursting as you suggest in Thessaly. I wish there were more studies of Greece and her geology. The Anatolian fault stands to take many thousands of lives in the future as it has done in the past. I have not studied with my own eyes metamorphic rock faults. I went to college in Pennsylvania where a vast inland sea created limestone and dolomite deposits with abondant fossils. There is nothing there even close to a fault unless it is deep under the remnants of this inland sea. Then I came to Hawaii where igneous rock is the only kind we have (with occasional xenoliths of the mantle.) Our faults are so different as to be inapplicable to your marble and granite bedrock. I will look into it. Rob, what is the rock of which New Zealand is made? I know you have volcanoes. Are your faults so much more dangerous than ours just from the difference in composition of the magma involved? I suspect that is part of the difference!

(I'd repost that with spellcheck on another program, but my dyslexia is not new to anyone, and I think it is still understandable. If not, I will correct it and repost the comments. Please let me know!)

marcia, i always understand your posts!!

Rob, on another topic I'd asked Marcia about indigenous Hawaiian mammals. She noted that there were no mammals living in Hawaii until the arrival of people, who of course are mammals and they also brought other mammals with them. I then added that I'd read that there are no mammals native to New Zealand. There was once a giant flightless bird native to New Zealand called the moa, but it seems to have been hunted to extinction shortly after the arrival of the Maori. Marcia, suggested that I ask you about this at your own topic. Lastly, did the Maori bring small dogs and pigs with them, as well, when they settled what is now New Zealand?

maybe they hunted the bird to extinction because it was the only dinner in town. good question, cheryl.

Rob also has a ship beached on rocks near Gisbourne (spelling?) - and ecological disaster in the making. Where IS he?

Hi all No, I do not know why the Moa became extinct. Maori did bring dogs with them of Polynesian origin but these "Kuri" were extinct within a few years of European settlement, but no pigs arrived, because the Maori either did not bring them or they did not survive the trip. New Zealand, with the possible exemption of Northland would have been a lot cooler than what Maori settlers would have been used to and the new climate would have been alien to many animals they had brought over as well. Rabbits and European animals were introduced in the 1800s to help the English settlers feel a little closer to home since Canterbury and Otago would have been vast barren open areas and European plants were also introduced so that there would be some shelter from the wind. Northwesterlies used to blast across the Canterbury plains with such power that a freshly painted coach might leave Christchurch in perfect condition but having lost its entire coat of paint by the time it reached somewhere like say Darfield or Springfield. Nature was rough on the settlers in other ways too. The Waimakariri River, now partially tamed, used to invade Christchurch on a regular basis and flow down what is now Worcester Boulevard to the Avon River. Notable earthquakes in 1848, 1855 and 1888 ensured that Nelson, Wellington and Canterbury had a head start on earthquake preparedness. Nelson and Marlborough were rocked by a severe earthquake in 1848 of about magnitude 7.1-7.3 that damaged all buildings in the area and exposed the Awatere Fault. Seven years later, an even bigger earthquake rocked Wellington and measured 8.2. It demolished Wellington which fortunately was just a small town then, and seiches slopped backwards and forwards across the lakes, rivers and harbours for weeks. Some of the aftershocks approached 6.5. Rob

New Zealanders must be a determined bunch! Wind strong enough to blast paint off of a carriage?! Floods of Biblical Proportions? Great Earthquakes?! I think Australia might have looked a whole lot better after all that. I can understand why so many of you have Scots surnames. I'll look around in my Polynesian books and see if I can find any information on extinctions or population additions to the native fauna.

Interesting about the earthquakes in the mid-ninteenth century, Rob. You mentioned that the residents of Nelson, Wellington, and Canterbury all got a head start on earthquake preparedness. As Wellington was subjected to a massive earthquake in about 1855; has it resulted in present day building codes for the city being very stringent? Are they comparable to cities like Tokyo or San Francisco?

Hi all Indeed they are Cheryl. New Zealand has some of the toughest building standards in the Western world if not the world. So much so that some people who like historic buildings say it is used as an excuse to modernise the skyline. Well, the truth is a lot of effort goes into finding an owner for the buildings before the wreckers ball is called, but the cost of modernising some buildings is just too high. The only alternative would be to tear down the building and rebuild it in an 19th Century style, though the costs would be higher. We have invented a couple pieces of technology that improve the safety of buildings and bridges considerably. Giant piston like devices acting as shock absorbers are being installed under key bridges, buildings and other infrastructure in earthquake prone areas that can absorb most of the shaking a severe earthquake will generate. In addition thanks to a very graphic advert that was run in the 1980s and early 1990s about earthquakes, a fund for providing assistance after a bad eve t has been set up. But, my friends, one day maybe not in your lifetime but probably in mine, a severe earthquake WILL strike New Zealand. It will register somewhere in the vicinity of magnitude 7.5-8.3 and will be centred on one of the following faults: Wellington, Wairarapa, Alpine. In addition there are at least 4 faults in the South Island and several more in the North Island capable of producing a magnitude 7.0-7.4. They are: Hope, Kakapo, Ostler, Clarence, Awatere, Porters Pass, Ohariu. The chance of a bad earthquake hitting on any given day is quite low, but still existent nonetheless. It is the price we pay for such a beautiful yet dynamic country. New Zealanders are considered hardy because the country we live in is so geographically isolated. Our nearest neighbour is at least 2000km away, and even within New Zealand parts of the country are isolated, like the West Coast. Milford Sound is particularly isolated with only one road in and 120km from Te Anau to Milford one way via a road prone to snow avalanches in winter and slips from heavy rain in spring and summer. Rob

There are virtues to living in Paradise in the middle of the Pacific Plate. Our 7.2 EQ shook down a few small walls and old chimneys but nothing other than pickle jars were broken in stores plus a few token plate glass windows. My house rode around in circle on the 20 feet of fill saving my 9 large windows. New Zealand is on a Zone of Subduction. Just don't get sucked under. San Francisco has also had the problems of overhanging ornamental building fixtures to replace or tear down. Usually the latter. Now, how ready is your emergency stash of food and water? Where on earth are you storing the one away from the usual pantry? I cannot imagine where to put mine other than in the car! Does the ground open up, swallow cows and people (or sheep in your case) then slam shut again? That happened in the 1800's here. Whenever we have a strong EQ, I watch the ground VERY carefully.

*test*

Hi all I want to introduce you to the volcanoes of New Zealand: Types of Magma: Basaltic - fluid, runny lava, low viscosity, explosions unlikely Andesite - moderately fluid, some stiffness, moderate viscosity, explosions possible Rhyolite - low fluidity, stiff, high viscosity, explosions likely Ruapehu - Andesite, last erupted 1995-1996, lahar in 1953 destroyed rail bridge just before a train crossed the Whangaehu, killing 151 people. Dormant. Ngauruhoe - Andesite, last erupted 1975, explosive eruptions in 1975 heard over 80km (50mi)away. Dormant. Tongariro - Andesite, last erupted 1896, shares same magma reservoir as Ngauruhoe. Dormant. Taranaki - Andesite, last erupted 1755, known for major slope failures and lahars. NZ Rainier? Dormant. Tarawera - Rhyolite, last erupted 1886, destroyed Pink and White Terraces and 3 villages killing 153 people. Dormant. Okataina - Rhyolite, last erupted ??, Caldera volcano known for large eruptions. Dormant. White Is - Andesite, last erupted 2000, Sulphur mined prior to crater wall collapse in 1914 blocking vent triggering an explosion and lahar. 11 people died when the sulphur works was destroyed. Continuously active Auckland - Basalt, last erupted 1200, 48 volcanoes identified in volcanic which is currently dormant. Taupo - Rhyolite, last erupted 186, Caldera volcano with reputation for extreme explosive eruptions. Dormant. Rob

Are there any extinct volcanoes? Surely there are, but visible to look at and see the late stages of eruptions? They usually differ completely from the rest of the volcano. Mauna Kea is in late stages but dormant for centuries.

Hi all The 48 volcanoes of the Auckland volcanic field were one shot events. With the possible exception of Rangitoto (the big island in the Hauraki Gulf)none of them will erupt again. The volcanic field responsible for this collection of explosion craters, cones, and an island is however, dormant. I live next to three extinct volcanoes called Lyttelton, Herbert, and Akaroa. These were active 10-5 million years ago and are essentially massive basaltic, strato shields. They are too steep to be called shields, but not steep enough to be strato volcanoes, like Taranaki and Ngauruhoe. Rob

Truly extincet? As in the erosion has progressed below the original bottom of the magma chamber? We have only one on this island thus far discovered, the Kohala Mountains at the far north of the isalnd. There are remnants of the proto-volcano beneath Mauna Loa (it is still a bit of a theory and varies from time to time according to what the latest volcanologist has published) and I like to think of the Ninoole Cones as being part of that. Imagine a volcano UNDER the world's most massive volcano!!! I'd like the reassurance that your volcanoes are extinct. I see many little quakes lately in the Wairakei area. Is this a new stirring going on, or is it the normal process of the area? The vast geothermal area must be like our Yellowstone. Was there a huge eruption in the past? (I do know but please share it with us here.) The following has interesting comments on ground movements in the Wairakei area. http://wwwrcamnl.wr.usgs.gov/rgws/Unesco/PDF-Chapters/Chapter9-9.pdf

I just found a terrific resource page for New Zealand Volcanoes http://www.gns.cri.nz/earthact/volcanoes/index.html

Hi all I think Lyttelton, Herbert, and Akaroa, are truly extinct, because the vents were 5000ft above sea level at the height of their life span and the sea has breached the crater wall. It has hollowed so much of the Lyttelton and Akaroa volcanoes, that aside from Quail Island in Lyttelton Harbour and maybe Onawe Peninsula in Akaroa Harbour, one would not know where to start looking for a magma chamber. Since Lyttelton and Akaroa are extinct there is no magma supply of any description for Mt Herbert which is a volcano on top of two large strato shields. Rob

Me again Note Mount Herbert is the highest peak on the peninsula and is about 2000 ft lower than what geologists think the the summit would have been during the eruptive phase. The volcanoes you see today are the result of eruptive activity 10-6 million years ago and 5 million years of unchallenged erosion. Rob

i didn't know they actually died out--i thought they only went dormant but not quite all the way gone. interesting stuff!

They become "Extinct" when volcanoes erode down below the bottom of the original magma chamber. Yes, sea breaching a once-5000M high volcano could well qualify it for extinct classification. Kilauea's magma chamber is about 18 miles (50 M) beneath the caldera.

What is 18 miles in metric? My calculator will only convert miles into KM. (Yes, I could divide but can anyone help? Surely not 50 meters!)

so they have to pull all the way back into the earth where they were born to become extinct?

Erosion works wonders when you are surrounded by sea. The original Hawaiian Island was Kure. It is now an atoll - a fringing wreath of coral with a lagoon inside and the deep sea around it. The actual volcano may be many thousands of feet under the sea by now.

18 Miles (statute) equals 28,968.2 Meters http://www.sciencemadesimple.net/EASYlength.html

Hi all The metric system is what is used in New Zealand. So a centimetre is 10 millimetres, a metre is 100 centimetres, a kilometre is 1000 metres, while a gram is 1/1000th of a kilogram which is 1/1000 of a ton. Still with me? If not here is a summary of what the above is all about: 1 milligram = 1/1,000th of a gram 1 gram = 1/1,000th of a kilogram 1 kilogram = 1/1,000th of a ton 1 millimetre = 1/10th of a centimetre 1 centimetre = 1/100th of a metre 1 metre = 1/1,000 of a kilometre 1 cubic centimetre = 1/1,000,000th of a cubic metre 1 cubic metre = 1/1,000,000,000th of 1 cubic kilometre So in Marcia's case 28 kilometres is 28,000 metres. To get the kilometres figure from 1 mile remember this: 1 MILE is 1.6 KILOMETRES. Thus 100 MILES is 160 KILOMETRES. Rob

Hi all Following on from all this metric are some stunning facts about volcanic eruptions around the world and in New Zealand. The figure given for size is in cubic kilometres (cu. km). Taupo/Oruanui 26,500 years ago = 1,200 cu. km Krakatoa 1883AD = 18 cu. km Pinatubo 1991AD = 5 cu. km Mount St Helens 1980AD = 3 cu. km Tarawera 1886AD = 1 cu. km Taupo 186AD = 100 cu. km Novarupta 1912 = 32 cu. km Long Valley 760,000BC = 600 cu. km And the grandest of them all: Yellowstone 600,000BC = 2000 cu. km Rob

I should probably have a topic for Kilauea or Hawaiian Volcanoes: Kilauea's output in 1998: The volume of lava measured flowing through the tubes varied from 1.5 cubic meters per second (17.5 cubic ft/sec) to 11.0 cubic meters per second (130 cubic ft/sec). The average volume was about 4.5 cubic meters per second (53 cubic ft/sec). This converts to a daily average volume of 400,000 cubic meters (4,700,000 cubic feet). http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/volcanowatch/1998/98_12_31.html

Rob posted this in his World Volcanology club at Yahoo. I obtained his permission to post it here. KRAKATOA - rob glennie Krakatoa - the opening salvo [Yahoo! Clubs: World Volcanism] Early in the morning of May 19, 1883 strange vibrations were being picked up by the wealth of birdlife on the East Indies (Indonesia prior to independence from the Dutch)island of Krakatoa. Two days before snakes had been behaving lamely and would be prey was surviving to live another day. It was hot and sticky so close to the equator and the sun bet down on the tropical rainforest that covered the island in a lush green. As night fell later that day stranger things were afoot. Earthquakes had scared the locals on nearby islands despite the East Indies being an area of the Pacific notorious for earthquakes and volcanoes. Another chapter in the colourful geological history of the East Indies was about to unravel. It was a sunny morning in the Sunda Straits as the local people on the islands of Java and Sumatra went calmly about their business like they would on any other day. May 20, 1883 seemed like every other day before it. At 2.30 P.M local time a powerful boom rocked the islands of the straits and a big billowing cloud of ash and rocks punched 20km skyward. Further explosions preceded by earthquakes sent residents running for cover. A westerly wind blew the ash eastward towards Djakarta on the island of Java as panicky residents recoiled in shock. Krakatoa volcano had awoken from it's slumber. The spectacular opening salvo however was not followed up immediately by a period of eruptive activity as many expected would happen. Instead the volcano seemed after only a couple weeks to be settling back down into a state of calm. On the surface this appeared to be the case and residents soon resumed normal activities as if nothing had happened. They however could not see that the newly opened vent was becoming blocked and no one knew what a cryptodome was. They did not know that in 10 weeks time the volcano would spring the noisiest known surprise in the short history of mankind on the planet. No one knew that as the people on the surface went about their daily lives, a slumbering giant filled with a terrible resolve, was awakening slowly from a 1000 year period of dormancy. So for an 8 week period a relative calm descended on the Sunda straits and the hundreds of villages that dotted the islands in the straits and on either side of it. It would end on August 12 and the two weeks following that fateful date would change the face of the Sunda straits for eternity in the eyes of man. Following in Part 2: Krakatoa - the tiger that roared. Rob Thu, 30 Aug 2001 22:41:41 PDT To: kilauea83@yahoo.com From: robvolc1980 Reply-to: clubs-mail@yahoo-inc.com Subject: Krakatoa - the tiger that roared [Yahoo! Clubs: World Volcanism] Hi all A TIGER GROWLS: August 12-21 In the early hours of August 12 an earthquake sent residents of the coastal villages running for cover. It was followed almost immediately by a loud boom that rattled windows in many colonial Dutch buildings, with lightning and thunder punctuating the ash cloud that climbed skywards from the island of Krakatoa. Ash fell briefly on the main islands and left behind a sulphurous smell that would becoming more and more prevalent over the next two weeks. People on the other islands in the Sunda straits watched the fireworks display with one eye on the ground before them and the other on the volcano. The next day a Dutch scientist from Djakarta was injured when bits of pumice rained down on him and a research party that had gone to inspect the volcano, earthquakes were moderate and a strong smell of sulphur dioxide filled the air above the vent. On August 18, Krakatoa upped the ante, sending bombs and blocks flying from the crater with sonic booms reverberating through the air. Earthquakes were frequent and the worst sign of things still to come was a sudden change in gas emissions. As the gas emissions plummeted a phase of uneasy calm began to overtake the villages. Minimal damage had been done to date, but what no one could see was that the cryptodome had succeeded in shutting of the vent just as a big magma blob, easily the biggest yet to part from the reservoir, began to force it's way upward. On August 20 it made contact with the cryptodome below sealevel and the magma started seeking cracks in the plumbing to force it's way into. Krakatoa now began to deform as millions of tons of gas filled magma thrust itself into the cracks. The entire island was slowing changing shape and introduced to a science still in it's infancy, a new phenomena - ground deformation. On the surface, nothing much had changed to the untrained eye and despite the increasing seismicity, the increasingly violent explosions of ash and rocks, life continued for MOST, as it had for the duration of civilization's time in the archipelago. But there was a problem, that would soon explode over the Sunda straits with a violence possibly unparalleled in volcanic activity, since a caldera in New Zealand had made the sky glow red in China and ancient Rome. THE TIGER ROARS: The Earth shudders - August 22-27 Lunch had just been served on August 22, 1883 when an explosion rattled windows in Djakarta and knocked ornaments of shelves. A huge cauliflower shaped cloud towered above the city on the western horizon. Almost immediately ash began to fall across the city and surrounding country side. Further explosions accompanied by earthquakes shut schools and sent the first civilians from the coastal villages fleeing for their lives. Underneath the volcano, magma continued to enter the cracks in the volcano internal plumbing and the cryptodome continued to hold despite occasional explosions. This activity continued off and on for the next three days unabated as the mayors of the many villages nearby got together to discuss crisis management, in the event Krakatoa decided to blow up. Unbeknownst to all concerned that was PRECISELY what Krakatoa was going to do except that when it did blow, no one would be able run, no one would be able to hide, and the world would feel the lash of the tsunami waves that did the globe. Part 2 CONT NEXT MESSAGE

Krakatoa - the tiger that roared 2 [Yahoo! Clubs: World Volcanism] Explosions continued all through the night on August 25-26 with occasional thunderstorms driven by the electrically disturbed atmosphere adding to the percussion of the explosions and the now nearly continuous earthquakes. Everyone in all the villages was very scared. In all their lives the elders had never seen anything quite like it and when the activity took a new turn it was always for the worse. Only the kids thought it was cool, but even they were starting to have second thoughts. Schools had been shut for two days after ash had collapsed roofs in some cases, giving children an unexpected holiday. But few would have time for playing with their mates as the activity took a final decisive turn for the worse on the afternoon of August 26. Explosions reached fever pitch with individual events being heard over 100km from the vent. That night many families began evacuating from the villages on islands in the straits and from the coastal zones. Lightning and thunder cracked through the clouds and ash fell continuously mixed with bits of pumice. No one was laughing any longer, no one played outside anymore. Dawn came with a huge column of ash rising from the vent of Krakatoa and anyone who had a boat or some other form of transport now began making evacuation plans. At 0902 hours came the first colossal explosion amid a continuous swarm of earthquakes. The cryptodome had failed. At 0922 another huge explosion ripped through the sky and the ground. The magma chamber was now exposed to the sea. 1000 hours rolls around as one of dozens of earthquakes in progress gets under way. Two minutes later, a explosion logged as the LOUDEST NATURAL EXPLOSION man has ever heard and easily one of the most powerful man has ever seen rents the sky, the ground and the sea. 15km3 of material goes skyward while another 3km3 promptly falls into the seething, boiling cauldron, followed immediately by an enormous volume of seawater. The fourth of four huge explosions that noisy August morning, triggers a tsunami that sweeps all and sundry from the straits - or drowns them under 50 feet of water. No one can run, no one can hide, but 36417 people are drowned in the carnage of THAT tsunami - the deadliest sea wave known to man. In the shocking aftermath, ships were found as much as 3km inland, dumped where the waves had left them. At least a hundred villages had vanished. Some have never been rebuilt. But the most incredible thing to have occurred on August 27 was the demise of 2/3 the island of Krakatoa and a huge pumice raft that plugged parts the straits for weeks following the titanic events. Today a new island has arisen in the place of Krakatoa, and it has been called Anak Krakatoa - Child of Krakatoa. Born in 1927 it seems to have picked up a few of it's elders traits - violence, temper tantrums and yes - a determination to pick up where Grandpa left off. Rob

Hi all A magnitude 5.8 earthquake 50km southwest of Haast rocked the lower South Island on Sunday evening. It struck at 7.37PM local time and had a depth of 12km. This was in the zone southwest of the Alpine Fault. The zone southwest of the Alpine Fault is very active. It is because in part the Australian plate is subducting under the Pacific Plate. The role is reversed at the other end of the fault with a well established Benioff Zone operating. Northeast of the Alpine Fault, the Pacific Plate is subducting under the Australian Plate and the full range of symptoms of subduction are clearly visible in the North Island. They include, faults, volcanoes (dome, caldera, stratocone), geothermal areas with mudpools, hot springs and occasional hydrothermal events (ground in Rotorua sometimes blows leaving behind a boiling crater of hot water). Rob

I posted this Haast EQ but did not follow up. Damage? Injuries? or just business as ususal on the Alpine Fault?

Hi all Marcia, remember me saying the fault was strike slip? Well it is strike slip and it has a vertical dip that means the rocks are not grinding past each other. They are locked. What I mean is that they will be most likely to break in a big earthquake. There are almost no deep earthquake events along the Alpine Fault and within the immediate vicinity of the fault very few shallow events. The events shown on maps are near the fault but have nothing to do that is directly related to the fault. Rob

You did mention about the Alpine fault. Deep quakes have been strong and blocks of land have been lowered as a result, but if you want REAL damage to the surroundings, just let it be a whole lot shallower. That tears down walls, breaks windows and opens your kitchen drawers dropping broken glass from cabinets above into them.

Download archival video footage of White Island's volcanic activity. http://www.gns.cri.nz/earthact/volcanoes/wiphot.htm A new vacancy has just been announced on our site for a Receptionist. http://www.gns.cri.nz/news/vacancies/index.html HazardWatch, online now: http://www.hazardwatch.co.nz

Hi all I imagine from a high cliff or aircraft you could get a view of the tsunami quite safely and see how it forms and also how the water retreats before the individual waves. It would be interesting to watch from a vantage point above the waves height, and I would not actually mind seeing one from the scientific curiosity point of view. Rob

Did you see that movie Point Break?

http://www.spring.net/movies/LEGEND.WAV and http://www.spring.net/movies/50YEAR.WAV

And this one's for you Rob: http://www.spring.net/movies/NEWZEAL.WAV http://personal.vineyard.net/bond007/vortex/pb/pb.htm

Rob, I'd post it at your Yahoo groups but I can't get in to do it! **************************** NZ volcano videos, photos **************************** From: Jeff Lyall New content - Volcanic video download Download archival video footage of White Island's volcanic activity. http://www.gns.cri.nz/earthact/volcanoes/wiphot.htm HazardWatch, online now: http://www.hazardwatch.co.nz ********************* ENVISAT launch ********************* From: obenholzner ENVISAT is in orbit! Please check: www.esa.int best wishes JH Obenholzner

NEW ZEALAND INSTITUTE OF GEOLOGICAL & NUCLEAR SCIENCES LTD. The following earthquake has been recorded by the Institute Reference number: 1852518/G Universal Time: 2002 March 9 2024 NZ Daylight Time: 2002 March 10 9.24 a.m. Latitude, Longitude: 44.86�S 170.78�E Location: 30 km north-west of Oamaru Focal depth: 34 km Richter magnitude: 3.4 felt inland from Oamaru

INSTITUTE OF GEOLOGICAL & NUCLEAR SCIENCES LTD. The following earthquake has been recorded by the Institute Reference number: 1852929/G Universal Time: 2002 March 11 1728 NZ Daylight Time: 2002 March 12 6.28 a.m. Latitude, Longitude: 40.39�S 176.29�E Location: 30 km south-east of Dannevirke Focal depth: 13 km Richter magnitude: 3.4 Possibly felt in the Weber region.

The latest HazardWatch is now online: http://www.hazardwatch.co.nz We have a new vacancy in Marketing for a person with Petroleum Industry experience. http://www.gns.cri.nz/news/vacancies/index.html Details on our 6th Annual Volcanoes and Society Short Course are now online: http://www.gns.cri.nz/news/conferences/volc6th.html

Hi all No Terry. I have not seen Point Break. Mount Ruapehu is having moderate tremor again, but nothing else appears to be happening so the volcano remains at alert level 1 (BACKGROUND ACTIVITY). Here is the NZ volcano alert level system: Alert Level 0: Dormant, Quiscent. Alert Level 1: Initial signs of unrest. No threat. Alert Level 2: Confirmation of unrest. Eruption threat. Alert Level 3: Minor eruptions commenced. Real possibility of hazardous eruptions. Alert Level 4: Hazardous local eruption in progress. Large scale hazardous eruption now possible. Alert Level 5: Large scale hazard eruption in progress. Rob

Hi all A thunderstorm passed Purau Bay where I went for a day with some relatives. My Dad's brother has property in the area and is selling his holiday home so we went to see them at their current property one last time before they move to Diamond Harbour where a half built holiday home and possible place to retire to awaits them. Very nice place on an ancient lava flow. The whole area is in a breach volcanic crater which has been opened to the sea and has a population I am guessing of 6-7000 people and the Port of Lyttelton which serves Christchurch. This storm was the opening volley of a cold front sweeping up the South Island from the Antarctic. Such changeable weather is not surprising for late March as we move into the Autumn phase of the Four Seasons. This southerly blast is expected to contain rain, hail and possible heavy thundery showers. Snow may follow later. Rob

Diamond Harbour sounds like Hanauma Bay on Oahu, also a breached volcanic crater. It sounds lovely, and how wonderful to have relatives around you. Living on an island can be very lonely when your family is thousands of wet miles away.

Hi all Northerly here and very pleasant outside. 20.C high cloud and little wind. I think it is raining in the mountains which is not a very comforting thought considering 30 odd University of Canterbury geography students are near Cass at the moment doing assignment work which is for GEOG 201. I will be in Cass from April 9-12 and I will be doing assignment work on glacial moraine and landslide deposit up there. Should be a great trip, despite the time of year that we are doing it in. Rob

Please tell us about it when you return. Perhaps the weather is getting the rain over with so you can have glorious sunshine. Nothing is worse than camping for a week in cold wet clothes. Been there and done that!

Hi all No, we will be staying in the University of Canterbury field station there. It might be a dingy building according to the staff leading the trip but it is in a fantastic spot. Rob

Rob, there is something about field station dinge that adds to the ambience of the whole adventure. Ours are not much better. In fact, anyone who has stayed in Magma House (for the extended field camps of student volcanologists and interns), it is part of the whole experience. I just love the name of the place. All it has for creature comforts is stacked bunks on which you place your bedrolls or sleeping bags. It is not luxurious, but it sure beats the conditions of field camp out at the eruptions. I'll dig up the ones of my son at Pu'u O'o when it was actively founting and was the main vent on the current flank eruption.

New Zealand Historic Places Trust - 2002-03-19 New Zealanders\' understanding and appreciation of their heritage places took a huge step today when the on-line version of the statutory Register of Historic Places, the only official record of New Zealand\'s heritage, was launched by the New Zealand Historic Places Trust. For more information, please refer to: http://www.historic.org.nz/news/media_releases/2002_03_19.htm

Hi all I am back from my great trip to Cass, where I studied Glacial Moraine and Landslide deposit from a geographical perspective to understand the environment of the Cass Basin. I was part of a larger group of five who decided to collaborate on tackling this project as part of the Geog 201 assessment programme. Full details following shortly. Rob

Pictures too? I can hardly wait! Welcome home, Rob. *Hugs* We missed you!

Hi all This is a full report on the my four day sojourn to Cass from April 9 to April 12 for Geography 201 (Physical Geography). All dates mentioned are in NZST (NZ standard time). It dates back to the start of the University year and the introduction to the course. On the last Monday of February in A3 lecture theatre 120 odd students gathered for their first taste of Geography 201 and the world of physical geography. Some of us were doubtlessly apprehensive having heard stories from friends who had done it in 2001 about the field work at Cass, the one day exercise at Orton Bradley and the introductory whirlwind tour around Christchurch. Our lecturer and course co-ordinator, Wendy Lawson (a moderately built England born New Zealander)began speaking. It soon became obvious that something big was afoot, for she told us that the nature of the course would be a rapid fire programme with 3 fieldtrips increasing in length and importance. It would culminate in a four day field trip to Cass. On Saturday March 16 with a northwester blowing over the rim of the Lyttelton volcano's hollowed out crater with 5 million years of unchallenged erosion, we all hit Orton Bradley Park on the south side of the crater in what was described as a military style operation. We had three tasks. Measure the stream flow in the stream that ran through the park. The second one was take wind, relative humidity, and temperature measurements from set locations on the slopes. And the third was learning to use what I think was a geodimeter to do slope and distance readings. The idea was to make sure that we could hit the ground running at Cass. In the past they had thrown us all in at the deep end and taught us to operate the equipment as we went. Well, learning a geodimeter takes time and understanding how to use it from the outset made it easier to handle in the field at Cass where we would be spending two days in the field collecting data and making observations. Earlier that week the projects had been finalised. I chose to do "a comparative analysis of glacial moraine and landslide deposits". I learnt that Burn Hockey who had lectured Dad many moons ago was supervising the project and that Rachel Spronken-Smith, a climatologist lecturer would be the bottom line of the law on our field trip, the third of three to be going to Cass. Wendy "Julia Rockinghorse" Lawson was leading the first, Ian "grumpy" Owens the second and Rachel the third. Initially it looked like I would be the only one doing that particular project which was a worry because for safety reasons a minimum of two had to be in the project. But then Carolyn Woods appeared, followed in short order by Olivia Hyatt, Stefan Hatfield, and Leigh Skerten. All of a sudden things looked considerably brighter. With only two weeks to go until the first people went to Cass, the focus changed from organisation to logistics. We were introduced to the assisting staff on the field trip who as time went along also became good friends and part of the 201 family. Jana Newman, a masters student doing research on a glacier on the Hut Point peninsula in Antarctica was the first. Mat Bartholemew who is doing research on the mass balance of the Ross ice shelf, Antarctica was introduced next, followed by Bree Ferrick. On the day before we were due to break for Easter and the term holidays the final group assembly took place. It was agreed that Olivia and I would briefly look at our geology notes from last year and brief everyone on the bus going up to Cass. And so the scene was set for April 9, 2002. PART TWO: Fieldwork at Cass When we boarded the bus to Cass on April 9, no one really knew what we were getting into. Few had had a chance to speak with the "Trip A" group who went from April 3-6 and no one had had a chance to speak with "Trip B", who would be going home on the bus that brought us up. Olivia and I never got around to briefing the others because of our dispersion around the bus. We arrived in brilliant sunshine at about 10.50AM and by 11.20 were on a walk up to some native bush behind the field station. From there we tracked south across some large scree fans and onto a glacial moraine (not the one that we eventually studied). We learnt about the processes and were told we would have to do a brief presentation that night to the others. And so the reputation of C4: Glacial Moraine/Landslide group for comedy was born. When we got back we relaxed in the warm sunshine and had a welcome afternoon tea before getting ready for dinner. After dinner we had presentations devised over a twenty minute period in which Stefan decided we would do some skits to illustrate the processes. I did the human processes. I pretended to be digging, and stood and said "Man digging this is hard work". Other skits dealt with fluvial, aeolian, and mass movement processes. There were six categories on which our presen ation was graded: C4 appeared in 5 of the 6 and were judged overall winners. None of the others appeared in more than 1 or 2. For the remainder of the evening we played cards and socialised. TO BE CONTINUED...........

I thought I would direct you to the University of Canterbury staff profiles for Wendy Lawson, Ian Owens, Burn Hockey, and Rachel Spronken-Smith who are full time lecturers at the University of Canterbury. http://www.geog.canterbury.ac.nz/ go to staff and click on the above four. Rob

Getting late here. Continue the story of Cass tomorrow. Rob

Hi all Continuing from where I left of last night. We rose the following morning between 7 and 8 AM to a foggy morning with low cloud and mist slung around the mountains. After breakfast we dispersed to get ready for the days work. This was day one of two allocated specifically to data gathering for the projects we were working on. After collecting the geodimeter and the pole with prism we piled into the minivan that was taking our group and another group to our study areas a few kilometres away from Cass field station. When we got there, we walked across a farmers paddock and up a ridge to a glacial moraine running almost N-S. With Jana's help we set the geodimeter up and about half an hour later Stefan and Olivia started logging data. Leigh was holding the pole, while Carolyn and I did sketches of Mount Misery to annotate. After a while Jana swapped with Mat who came up after helping some people doing a pool and riffle assignment get set up. It was a GLORIOUS day, with 30.C temperatures being recorded (as we found out later from people doing surface microclimates)on one side of the valley which was bathed in sun, and 15.C temperatures on a slope that was in the shade for the whole day. I helped out as well by holding the pole while Carolyn logged data for Stefan in Olivia's notebook (Olivia was of trying to get a rock sample together with Leigh - it turned out to be a rock bashing exercise). In a single cross section we got as far as 200 metres away from the geodimeter. Evidently other groups with radioes found it hilarious listening to the person with the pole and the geodimeter operator communicating: Stefan: "Rob go left 10 metres. I can't see you in the sights." Rob: "Okay". 20 seconds later "In position. Can you see the pole because I can't see you." Stefan: "No. Twist the prism back toward me." Rob: "Okay. Can you see me now." Stefan: "Yes". This could be heard by all the groups with radioes turned on within 20km of base. And so it went on until about 4.PM on Wednesday when Burn Hockey radioed us to say transport would be waiting in 20 minutes at the gate to the farmers paddock. I held the pole for Stefan, Carolyn and Leigh, and logged data for the same three as well. Since Olivia was the more senior of the two geologists in the group she was off tending to the rocks. After dinner we were required to give a presentation on the days work and what we would do on Thursday. One group was essentially finished because they skipped dinner and remained in the field until 7.PM logging data with the aid of flashlights. Another one was going to camp out overnight and log data throughout the night (surface microclimates). We had one problem. We had only one landslide that was considered accessible but had two moraines. To restore the balance we ignored the data from one of the moraines and decided to spend the whole day on Thursday dealing with the landslide. With the days debrief over we were left to our own devices until the 11.PM silence law came into effect. Many went to bed immediately knowing full well that no one would be in bed before midnight the following night. More card games, some Southern Draught drunk and music played on Mat's laptop. Thursday morning dawned overcast and drizzly. The drizzle stopped early on but the cloud would hang around most of the day. After breakfast we set off back to the same site to collect more data. The landslide sat partially on top of a scree fan from a mountain stream, now covered in matagouri and tussock. About half way up to the site I realised I was still wearing sneakers and not the tramping boots that I had got a couple years earlier. Too late, so we continued on up the hill. Stefan and Leigh did a transect across the landslide near the base of the scree. Leigh, a small girl with shoulder length blond hair almost completely vanished from sight while tracking across the landslide in a northerly direction. Once we were set up further up the slope for the next one I volunteered to take the pole for the next transect. About 5 measurements into the matagouri I slipped on a rock that came loose under my feet (maybe it was just as well I had sneakers on. I would have pitched forward into the matagouri and prob bly hurt myself more than just slightly banging my knee, and the prism would have been damaged). As it was I came to a halt short of the matagouri. The radio had slipped from my shorts (knocked of - I could hear Stefan calling over the radio, as he had seen the pole go down). I called him to wait while I located the radio and after a minute we were back in business. I continued tracking north across the landslide and finally Stefan lost sight of me with the angle of the slide blocking his view. Upon returning to the others I was labelled a legend for so quickly recovering. We were doing a third cross section for the landslide when the battery went dead on the geodimeter. Stefan pulled it out and fitted a new one. However it must have seen some use because by the time we started the fourth one it was dying too and with no batteries we knew that it could spell the end of the data gathering. Although it was 2.PM we were geared towards spending another 3 or 4 hours (light permitting)getting data. We radioed Jan who was responsible for maintaining the equipment. She said they would need 6-8 hours recharge time. That was it. When that battery died, aside from the photographic reconnaisance (which Carolyn and I had already started)there was nothing to do but return to camp. Stefan and Olivia agreed that ideally we should do another cross section, but when the geodimeter started flashing a continuous warning they knew the game was up. So we returned to camp. Stefan Carolyn and Olivia took off to Castle Hill for a bout of rock climbing while Leigh and I mucked around at camp and started recording the wealth of data into our own notebooks. Mat went to the Bealey pub, which was made famous in 1995 by a moa sighting, to get the alcohol for the party that would follow after debrief and returned at 6.PM with stacks of Canterbury Draught, Speights, Southern Draught, wine, some vodka and god knows what else. After dinner we had our final debrief and some presentations. I gave the groups presentation and the hall rocked with laughter when I mentioned the matagouri. "Oh and ah, by the way, from personal experience matagouri is a bitch to deal with. I slipped on a rock catapulting me onto a small matagouri bush. In the process I lost the radio and could hear Stefan calling over it. They knew something because the pole vanished from view." With debrief over, presentations began. From Rachel we got the award for best presentations and enthusiasm, and finally the ultimate reward was handed back. From the back of the room in a calm voice said "Ah, Rachel, I think I better hand this easter egg back. For doing the best donut, I award you this." A standing ovation and deafening laughter followed. At 7.45PM Rachel said "That is all for today. I will let you get on with partying the rest of the night. Just respect the others and be quiet if most are in bed. That was it. From then until 2.20AM in the morning we partied, drunk alcohol, played beer drinking games, among other things. I talked with most people and participated in a few games, watched more than I could be bothered counting and in a discussion with others on what we would be doing in the long term, I reached a decision. It was in this period that I suddenly realised the utter stupidity of continuing my geology degree when I am conceivably only a year away from getting a Geography degree. Leigh agreed it was a good move to change. The party was virtually over when at 2.20AM Mat, Jana, Burn, Bree, and Rachel came in and shut off the music, cleared everyone out and sent them to bed. It was the best party in ages. At dawn the following day after a quick breakfast we packed up. Before going home I wrote a message in the guest book, as had Rachel and a few others: "Landslide and Glacial moraine deposits are fun, but comedy is better. WATCH THE MATAGOURI!!!". Others included "Wendy Lawson's a.k.a Julia Rockinghorse offer to sign Clints arse (logged at 4.41AM April 6). Out of 20 I would have to rate this field trip a 17 or 18 for sheer brilliance. And so ended one of the best trip I have been on and credit must go to Wendy, Rachel, Burn, Mat, Jana, Bree and the other students for making it what it was. Upon arriving in Christchurch the first comment of Olivia was the weather is atrocious (cloudy overcast with drizzle). Lol. Rob

Rob, Thank you for your thorough report. I almost feel as though I was with you seeing it through our eyes. It is absolutley mandatory to have a sense of humor on trips of this nature, and you seem to have had very good company. I will comment more after I have digested what you have writte. I give you an A+ for your report. Unfortunately, my vote doesn't count! I'll look for Cass on the web and see if I can find a few images to post while yours are being processed. We have the option here of having them digitized and put on a diskette or having the usual prints. If you opt for digitals, that would make life much simpler!

I have heard rumor that you are going into the Matagouri propagation business :p Also noted was that Cass is a big wine producing area of New Zealand. That explains the final night festivities! How was the food? Who cooked? Hardtack and beans and jerked meat?

Hi all A university chief did the cooking and we did the domestic duties plus helped the chef get meals ready. Had vegetables and roasts of various sorts for dinner. For lunch we took meat or vegetarian sandwiches stuffed with fillings into the field along with fruit. Breakfast consisted of porridge, and then toast with baked beans, and sausages. Rob

I am so disappointed. Roasts? Here I was, feeling sorry about your roughing it all week like REAL geologists do. Then, I was worried about how hard the ground would be to sleep on and the severity of the weather. Wrong!!! You slept inside. Now, I wonder if you ever will have a REAL field trip. Or is that the reason you changed majors? Yes, I am just teasing you. Still, I feel a bit cheated. I never had a field camp chef to cook for me!

*********************************** New Zealand submarine volcanoes *********************************** From: Dan Shackelford Thermal activity at submarine volcanoes NE of New Zealand (news article, 1 May 2002) Following is the first paragraph of a news article that may be of some interest. "New Zealand, American, and Japanese scientists will this week begin a two-week voyage to probe seabed thermal activity around 11 newly-mapped submarine volcanoes between the Bay of Plenty and the Kermadec Islands." The entire article is at: http://www.gns.cri.nz/news/release/rare.htm

Scientists find new submarine hotsprings 16/05/2002 http://www.gns.cri.nz/news/release/hotsprings.html New map rich in history as well as technology 16/05/2002 http://www.gns.cri.nz/news/release/edbrooke.html The latest HazardWatch is now online: http://www.hazardwatch.co.nz

Hi all Cass is not a wine producing area. The extremes are too severe at either end of the scale. Far too hot in summer and far too cold in winter. Summer and spring time convection driven storms would drop too much rain. The wine producing areas are Waipara in north Canterbury, Marlborough, Hawke's Bay, and possibly Central Otago. Rob

Hi all Thunderstorms with tornadoes in tow hammered Taranaki for over 24 hours yesterday causing widespread power cuts and damage on several properties. A house caught fire when it took a direct hit from lightning. http://www.stuff.co.nz/inl/index/0,1008,1210938a11,FF.html Rob

Hi all Winter arrived on Thursday night with rain and biting cold southerlies, gusting upto 90kmh (55mph)in exposed places. VERY cold on Friday morning and although the southerly seemed to clear smartly it started to come back in during the afternoon. Another southerly clobbered us this morning with rain and cold winds. Finally as if that is not enough, it snowed in the mountains and southern parts of the South Island overnight. More may be on the way tomorrow when another front roars through. AND I HAVE TO WORK IN THIS JUNK!!!!!! ARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!! Rob

Just when the rest of us are stocking up on sun screen and cool clothes, Rob has to fend off wintry blasts and horrible weather. Please stay dry and warm, Rob. Between you in the frigid south and Julie hiking up the slushy Mount St Helens, I will have a worrisome few days sitting in the tropics unable to help either one of you! Please let Greece have seasonable weather!

* Vent systems found off New Zealand * Three new sets of underwater hot springs have been discovered along a little known part of the Pacific "Ring of Fire". Full story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/-/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_2010000/2010549.stm

Hi all A southerly blast, the fourth in as many days is working its way up the South Island as a disturbed westerly airflow tends southerly. Hamilton and Auckland are expecting heavy thundery showers with hail, while Christchurch and the lower South Island are bracing for sleet, snow and severe wind chill. The culprit? A low pressure system with a central pressure of 975 HPa (hecta-pascales). Rob

You do not measure in millibars? HPa and I am still not conversant in metric! Please be warm and safe. That sounds like potentially dangerous and slippery weather.

Hi all I think HPa is fairly loosely used in meteorology but I often hear Jim Hickey saying things like "975 HPa - thats a nasty piece of weather". Anyway El Nino apparently means more westerlies and southerlies so I think this winter will be a hard one but the summer will be long and hot. Ah well. Marcia I hope there is good weather inside the Hemming house as well as outside. No falling barometers PLEASE!!!! Rob

It is a calm and way too sunny day in Hawaii. It is back to summer heat and I am currently undergoing meltdown in front of my computer/ Meltdown for Hilo occurs at anything over 28�C and currently it is 30� in my room. Two fans are of some assistance. Might I send you some excess BTUs and you can send me some cold. I'm certain we have far more than our share of photons currently!

Hi all Crowded House wrote this cool song called "Weather with you" that I will get the lyrics to and sing at some favourable occasion. Weather With You Written By N. Finn & T. Finn Walking 'round the room singing Stormy Weather at 57 Mt. Pleasant St. Now it's the same room but everything's different You can fight the sleep but not the dream Things ain't cooking in my kitchen Strange affliction wash over me Julius Caesar and the Roman Empire Couldn't conquer the blue sky There's a small boat made of china Going nowhere on the mantlepiece Do I lie like a loungeroom lizard Or do I sing like a bird released CHORUS Everywhere you go you always take the weather with you Rob

Great words, Rob. I am a bit boggled this morning since I did not get to sleep until after 3 AM this morning. I should know better! I have heard that you sing very well, indeed, but I have not yet heard you! Forget about me. I can't and won't.

Hi all I am just a humble 21 year old with a good personality and a wicked sense of humour. *GRINS* Rob

Hi all The volcano hazard in Auckland is real, lest anyone mistake the following report. The Auckland Regional Council has said that there is a 5% risk of an eruption in the Auckland area in the next 50 years. Considering it took 60,000 years to put the 48 known volcanoes in the Auckland metropolitan area and offshore, in their present places, that is a quite high chance. Auckland is riddled with one-shot volcanoes that have erupted for a few months or years and then gone extinct as the magma supply ran out. The largest of them is the Rangitoto volcano in the Hauraki Gulf which erupted about 700 years ago and whose volume is the combined total of the other 47 volcanoes put together. Rangitoto like the at-least-47 preceeding volcanoes (some volcanoes have been quarried away for roading material, and others were just huge explosion pits that have been filled in)is probably a one shot volcano that has had it's 15 minutes of fame and is now just part of the scenery. http://www.stuff.co.nz/inl/index/0,1008,1220687a11,FF.html Rob

That was a fascinating article and more than a little worrisome. How much preparation has been done on getting the civilians out of Harm's Way should it erupt? Very little. I suspect.

Hi all In the last 6 months there have been a series of earthquakes in south Westland which ranged between magnitude 6.1 on December 7, 2001 to magnitude 4.5. The earthquakes have been puzzling seismologists and geophysicists at the Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences, which says that they could be one of two things: a prolonged aftershock sequence from the December earthquake or foreshocks before a big one..... All the earthquakes have been shallow. None were more than 20km deep. All were in the range I mentioned above and ALL of them have been in the vicinity of the Alpine Fault. Rob

Hi all For those of you not familiar with the Alpine Fault, it is a large fault running across the lower slopes of the Southern Alps in a SW-NE direction. The fault represents the boundary between the Australian and Pacific tectonic plates, across which we lie. This has been the case for most of the 530 million years in which New Zealand has physically existed as a land mass. The country has a well established Benioff zone that is probably best noted under the North Island, where earthquake activity is really high. Our activity is comparable to California in more ways than one. We are both overdue for large earthquakes. We are both on plate boundaries, and we both have the same type of fault. The Alpine Fault here like your San Andreas fault is a dextral strike slip fault. This means that the fault displaces ground mainly horizontally, though some vertical displacement is visible. It also means that if you are on one side of the fault, looking across, the land on the other side is moving to your right. There is also a Benioff zone in the southwest, of the Fiordland coast. Like it's northern counterpart which is under the North Island, this zone has very high earthquake activity consistent with the subduction processes where rock is diving under other rock and generating a lot of friction. It also generates colossal volumes of heat, which melts rock and forms magma. Because of this the majestic volcanoes of the central North Island are in their current location. The magma is formed by various sorts of rocks melting in the lithosphere and changing the magmatic chemistry. This chemistry is responsible for the sorts of volcanoes that appear on the surface. Are you looking at the classic inverted ice-cream cone with a hole for the crater in the top? Are you looking at a shield shaped volcano with many craters and possibly calderas where the summit caved in? Are you looking at an actual caldera volcano, itself? Mount St Helens in Washington was a near perfect cone prior to May 18, 1980 and would definitely be t e inverted ice cream cone I mentioned. These are stratovolcanoes, comprised of alternating layers of ash and lava. In New Zealand, these volcanoes are best shown as Mount Ngauruhoe (Na-ru-ho-e) and Taranaki (Ta-ra-na-ki). Rob

Hi Rob! Great things you are posting and I seem so far from them. I was so much closer in Hawaii. California is not only one a whole different plate, they are on a different PLANET!!! Hi Julie!!

yes indeedy!!

Welcome to the Hotel California, Marci.

Hi all El Nino. What does it mean to people?? To me it means less easterlies and northerlies, but more southerlies and westerlies. Well the latter is very visible to all who know anything about the weather patterns around Christchurch, and Canterbury, because the frequency of the westerlies and their duration have increased markedly. On the West Coast it means rain, rain, and more rain. In Peru and California it means severe storms from the Pacific pounding their coastline with a savagery not often seen. It also means more rain for them and the subsequent flooding. Here it means more water flowing down the big rivers of Canterbury like the Waimakariri, Rangitata, Hurunui Waiau and Rakaia. El Nino brings drought to Canterbury and Otago, because the northwesters here are warm and dry. From the frequency of the westerlies right now I would say that El Nino has arrived or is very close by. Rob

Hi all I want to direct your attention to the Environment Canterbury website which is the webpage of the regional government of Canterbury. It sounds confusing, but basically what the Regional Councils do is plan policies for sustainable use of water, soil, and air resources within their political boundaries. They are responsible for: Transport planning Natural hazards Soil Water Air Environment - pollution - cultural - social - economic These policies are prepared under the framework of a single piece of legislation passed by the Government in 1991, called the Resource Management Act. http://www.ecan.govt.nz To see updated images of the Waimakariri River looking upstream (image A)and downstream (image B)respectively go here: http://www.niwa.cri.nz/services/cam-era/sites/waimaka/ for Waimakariri A http://www.niwa.cri.nz/services/cam-era/sites/waimakb/ for Waimakariri B This is NOT an estuary. This is the Waimakariri River as it appears across much of the Canterbury Plains. It is running high, which is why it is dirty, but in full flood the river will be a uniform brown colour from bank to bank, with no islands of sediment inbetween. Rob

I see you have had some minor EQs and one actually feelable at 4.0. My family expert on such things tells me except for Hawaii where feel magnitude is 4.0, in California has a 3.0 magnitude threshold as does most of the rest of the world. I thought everywhere was like Hawaii. *SIGH* Hotel California is definitely different from the rest of the world.

Your fish are definitely gone for the duration. Does anyone get caught in quicksand there? It looks dangerous!

Hi all Don't know what you are talking about. The uniform brown is water flowing between sediment islands laid down or rearranged during every flood. Quicksand is present, but only along the boundaries of the river bed near the inner bank, and only when the river is low. The Waimakariri is one of the best examples in the world of what a braided river is like, and probably the best would be the Rakaia, which is south of Christchurch. The road bridge over the river is about 1.1 miles long!! The road bridge over the Waimakariri is about 600 metres long. Rob

Braided rivers are different from the estuaries I am used to. I will study their properties just as soon as I get other things done like writing about the eclipse and posting the pictures... and Shasta and Lassen... and I will be flying eastward soon.

Hi all SNOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It is SNOWING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Christchurch Airport is shut. State Highway 1 south of Dunsandel is closed all the way to Timaru and there is 4000 people without power after a combination of snowfall and lightning brought down powerlines and power poles in inland parts of Canterbury. Those same areas have had 6 inches of snow dumped on them and it is still falling. The snow is not heavy, but it is persistent and FREEZING!!!!!!!!! ---------- In 1992 we had a trio of really severe snowstorms hit Canterbury, that have been put down in part to the eruption of Pinatubo (11th anniversary of eruption was on Saturday)pumping enough dust and aerosols into the atmosphere that there was cooling which led to a cold and severe winter. In July a snowstorm dumped snow deeper than paddock fences in inland Canterbury. About 1,000,000 sheep died in the cold from the windchill, the snow and lack of feed. It was bad enough that the Government sent Iroquois helicopters and a Hercules transport aircraft to move supplies for the farmers in remote areas. But worse was to come... As night fell on August 27, the rain that had been falling from a depression of Banks Peninsula all day began to turn to sleet. I had been of school that day because the heating system failed and the teachers had been told it could not be repaired before the holidays started (August 28 was the last day of term). When I woke the following morning I could not believe my eyes. 5 inches snow lay over everything and more was accumulating all the time. I looked at the clock - it was after 9.AM. So I got dressed and went to find Mum. I found Dad instead. Mum was at work because the patients at St Winifreds hospital for the elderly was understaffed. He tells me the ENTIRE province of Canterbury has shut down. Schools, libraries, universities, malls, shops, entertainment complexes - the lot. Only emergency services and the army, plus Civil Defence were working. About 2.PM the snow turned to rain again and the Avon and Heathcote rivers began to rise. The following day Canterbury had no television. Sugarloaf TV transmitter had gone of the air. The Avon and Heathcote rivers overflowed flooding property in their lower reaches and as the tide came into the estuary, the flooding moved upstream while properties in flash places like Wairarapa Terrace warily watched the water creeping across their river verges toward the houses. The Government began organising a relief effort for Canterbury, once again sending the airforce to help transport supplies, while ordering the army to assist Civil Defence and help the isolated families, on the Port Hills and in inland Canterbury. This time the sheep toll was even worse. 2,500,000 died from exposure and lack of food. The death toll of sheep may have been exacerbated by the lambing season and worsened by the amount of snow that fell. A third storm came in October and killed another 250,000 from memory which was the final act in a long and tortuous winter where farmers had been pitched from one crisis to the next by the punishing forces of nature. ----------- Bugger. It's stopped snowing. Rob

Rob, it CAN'T be snowing! It's 100� F in she shade on a cool day! Make snow angels for me. I was on snow a few days ago - on Lassen peak and we tossed snowballs at eachother. How fun! Be safe, dear. Snow is slippery stuff!

Hi all It did snow because the white stuff is still on the lawn. 6000 people were without power last night in inland areas after the worst storm since 1992 came to town. Winter is here with a vengeance. About 3 degrees celsius at the moment outside, and I am going nowhere today, and possibly tomorrow as well. As the southerly moved north, it caused flooding in Lower Hutt and Wellington. http://www.stuff.co.nz/inl/index/0,1008,1239581a1700,FF.html The rivers in Canterbury, most notably the Waimakariri River are running high and dirty. Which is causing concern in the Waiau catchment because the river has not much room to play in, and the water is not far from the stop banks. http://www.ecan.govt.nz - go river flows, North Canterbury, table format. Note the high flows of the Hurunui, Waiau (Hope flows into Waiau), and Waimakariri rivers The one conclusion that can be drawn from all this is that winter is here, and it hit with a vengeance. Rob

Hi all A weather bomb is headed for the North Island, and as you can see it is already hitting Auckland: http://www.stuff.co.nz/inl/index/0,1008,1242245a1500,FF.html The term weather bomb was used to describe a deepening low pressure system diving from 1020+ HPa to 1000 HPa and beyond. Very strong winds and heavy rain, with thunderstorms in tow are expected tonight and tomorrow in Auckland, Northland, Coromandel, Waikato, Bay of Plenty, Central Plateau, Hawkes Bay/Gisborne and eastern Wairarapa. Strong winds are forecast for most of the North Island and in particular the Hauraki Gulf. As it passes over, there is supposed to be cold southeasterly winds here and along the east coast up to Blenheim with rain. This is an evil system: The following are a cross section of weather forecasts through the North Island from Auckland to Napier, heading south-southeast. A)Today's Forecast: AUCKLAND Rain becoming persistent. Easterlies rising to gale. Updated: 20 Jun 2002 04:55AM Friday Rain, heavy at times. Strong winds tending southwest. B)Todays Forecast: HAMILTON Rain. Strong easterlies. Updated: 20 Jun 2002 06:55PM Friday Rain easing to showers. Strong southwest change. C)Todays Forecast: TAUPO Rain. Strong easterlies. Updated: 20 Jun 2002 06:55PM Friday Rain easing to showers. Strong southwest change. D)Todays Forecast: NAPIER Rain. Strong easterlies. Updated: 20 Jun 2002 06:55PM Friday Rain slowly clearing. Strong northerlies tend westerly. Rob

The term "weather bomb" certainly sounds like an evil system. Is New Zealand prone to constantly being exposed to weather extremes. Sometimes reading your posts, Rob, it seems as though NZ gets some of the worst weather in the world.

Hi all The weather bomb has passed over the country and things have improved considerably, but Civil Defence emergencies still exist in Coromandel and Waikato: http://www.stuff.co.nz/inl/index/0,1008,1243823a10,FF.html A rough night was in store for Waikato with very heavy rain and very strong winds. 20,000 homes were without electricity and the damage will take days to clean up. http://www.stuff.co.nz/inl/index/0,1008,1243489a1600,FF.html Northland had heavy rain that caused flooding. Schools closed early to get students home before the flooding got severe: http://www.stuff.co.nz/inl/index/0,1008,1243090a1800,FF.html Get a hint that this is nuts?? Well I confess that this is pretty bad and it appears that considerable damage has been done, but maybe this had something to do with the onset of El Nino. Here, we just had drizzle and a moderate southerly. But it was depressing having the fourth day in a row of rain. Rob

The farther away from you I get, the more reasons you seem to have to worry about you. Bad weather, indeed! It is hot and like mainland summers of my youth; I mostly hibernate until night when I stop being dripping wet and go back to more normal temperatures.

Take care yourself Rob. I will remember my past winter for all of my rest life. I cannot see the ice as before. Best regards John

To me ice is no longer beautiful and recreational. It is treachery waiting for us to make one little mistake. *HUGS* Please be careful. Poor John is a reminder to all of us how sneaky nature can be even when we are at out most vigilant. I hear thunder again. I guess I had better get offline before this fuses to the call and me with it.

Hi all Ice is only good in a drink - its no fun around here during the winter especially when driving down the road and hitting a patch of 'black ice' and doing a few 360's. Also, posting here since for some reason I can not display the entire Geo list. An interesting site I found was www.rfspace.com which describes a receiver that utilizes dsp for processing. Im still working up courage to start on my dsp radio kit (lots of surface mount parts) but Im getting closer to starting assembly. Just finished kitting up a PIC microcontroller that encapsulates GPS data and retransmits it as 1200 baud packet. 73 de AA9IL Mike r-c-i

OOOH Mike, that sounds great. No, NOT the black ice. It causes compound fractures and a great amount of body damage on other things like cars. In fact, the only place ice is good is in oa tall cool one. Cheers!!! Your radio ventures sound exciting. How much stuff did you capture on feild day? I was in the mountains of TN listening to papers by learned individuals and collecting stuff like books and having the authors sign them. I enjoyed it very much but was out of anything but scanner range where we were. Loads of geology, though!

Checking http://www.rfspace.com My host's W95 Pc shows the complete list of Geo sites as well as new posts when requested. I wonder what your difficulty is...! I'll check again!

Hi there Believe it or not, I didnt even turn a radio on during FD except for shortwave listening - the June VHF contest a couple of weeks ago was my 'FD' - anyway will try again to see if the complete list displays from the dialup. Sounds like your TN conference was fabulous - really helps to inspire! Looking forward to all the updates on your visit. 73 de AA9IL Mike r-c-i

There is a fantastic fossil bed in the Ohio River ca;lled the Falls of The Ohio tthat I want to see very much. We were going this weekend but plans have changed. I will keep trying to get there as soon as possibler. The only rocks I managed to find were ancient VERY fine grained limestones from the sea bed that once was Kentucky and Tennessee and a bit of coal on top of that. I am way behind in collecting. Most of the really good stuff was in the road cuts on super high-ways and it would have been suicidal to stop for a rock or two.

Hi all Marcia, when you get an opportunity I would not mind seeing you on Yahoo IM *GRINS BRILLIANTLY*. I am HOME!!!! Wooooooooohoooooooo!!!!! So where is the lovely hostess of Geo, the very lovely, very entertaining and very friendly Marcia Hemming?? Rob

My host has just posted in Geo 17 even though his screen did not show that such a topic existed. Hi Rob! I miss talking to you, too. I am perched ready to dash down two flights of steps to sign for my laptop as soon as it arrives. When that happens I will link up the computers so we can both be online at the seme time. The I will download Yahoo. The anguish as been real in mising talking to you all. Julie, I am ready to take on your broken leg and have things to entertain you. Been to the Falls of the Ohio and other places. So much happening and so little time to post. I will get caught up eventually! I promise! Rob, for what it is worth, both my host and his friend agree I am much better in person than in photos. *smiling brilliantly* back at you...

Hi all New Zealand is strangely quiet. No volcanism to speak of, and earthquake activity is steady, with nothing untoward happening. Is that good or bad? Hard to tell, though one notable thing to occur was a landslide near Turangi at the south end of Lake Taupo. No ordinary landslide, this one may have been a combination of the geothermal plumbing and the high water table getting the overlying soil and rock mobile. Has happened in the past. Rob

I worry with the world so quiet at the moment and John's multitude of great quakes about to happen. Could one have anything to do with the other? Quite possibly. Please do not let the New Madrid fault reawaken just yet.

Hi all Tomorrow I start a new feature in Robs Geo World by doing a run down of the Volcanoes of New Zealand. The series includes the following volcanoes: Auckland Volcanic Field Mayor Island White Island Edgecumbe Okataina Tarawera Tauhara Taupo Taranaki Tongariro Ngauruhoe Ruapehu Rob

Wow, that's great that you're doing this comprehensive coverage. Neat!

Ongoing Hawaiian eruption is for all to see. There is percious little unknown of the most studied volcanoes on earth. Rob, are you going to have help? It sounds like something at which you would excel!

Hi all If you go to World Volcanism you can see the series there. World Volcanism is a Yahoo Group I foundered and Marcia helps run (been pretty busy Marcia - you are welcome to join us again)dedicated to the volcanoes of the world. This is an indepth look at one of natures greatest landscape creators. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/worldvolcanism Rob

All I can do from here is cut and paste Kilauea updates! How sad it is finally doing something and I am thousands of miles from the closest active volcano! I remember how good your reports were. I snitched a few and posted them on Geo somewhere (I think they call it senility when I cannot rememberwhere I posted in 79 actual topics!) Thanks for putting them here.Here it is "foreverr" On Yahoo is it at the whim of Yahoo's masters! That is the reason I have mostly vacated their websites. Too frustrating!

Hi all This the long awaited first installment of the Volcanoes of New Zealand series. Rob ----- Mount Ruapehu is a large andesitic stratovolcano located at the southern end of the Taupo Volcanic Zone (the zone of active volcanoes stretching from Ruapehu to White Island). It is best remembered for the spectacular but small eruptions of 1995-96 which lightly dusted much of the central North Island and whose plume was picked up on weather radar. These eruptions were the largest in New Zealand during the 20th century and were similar in part to the 1945 eruption. That eruption emptied the crater lake in a series of phreato-magmatic (involving water and magma mixing)explosions. After this a lava dome appeared in the crater but was blown to bits a few months later. The eruptions formed a debris dam over the outlet into the Whangaehu River and this collapsed in 1953 with catastrophic results. On Christmas Eve 1953, Cyril Ellis, a postal worker was driving home from work at Waiouru and he was about to drive across the Whangaehu River when he noticed a "flood" going over and under the road bridge. Realising there was a problem he got out of the car and went to investigate. What it was, though no one knew at the time was a lahar from Ruapehu's crater lake (the debris dam had failed after the refilling lake had overtopped it). Then he heard a passenger train approaching the nearby rail bridge. Realising the danger the train was in he scrambled up the bank and ran along the railway tracks toward the train waving for the driver to slow down. But it was too late. The train thundered onto a bridge that did not exist and sailed through the air. F ve carriages and locomotive landed in the lahar. Despite the very brave efforts of Cyril Ellis, it was a night without parallel in New Zealand railway history. 151 people were killed. The following day, the Queen of England who was visiting made a speech on the radio expressing her sorrow. Geologically Ruapehu began forming about 1,000,000 years ago. The volcano experienced a flank collapse about 9,500 years ago which has left a deposit visible from the road to Whakapapa village in the Tongariro National Park, and has had numerous mudflows pour down it's flanks over time. The summit is a complex mass of 6 craters of which a circular one with a lake in it is the currently active vent. Two more notable eruptions occurred in 1969 and 1975 which did severe damage to skifield facilities at Whakapapa, damage (1975)to the Tongariro power scheme. Future eruptions are likely to consist of more phreato magmatic events, that will generate lahars. Explosions of ash and steam may follow, or there could be lava domes built in the crater. These are usually destroyed, generating ash clouds posing a threat to aircraft, and also the Tongariro Power scheme.

Want Julie to teach you how to post images to go with your text? She has become skilled at it. Wonderful series, Rob. It will benefit all of the internet from now on.

Hi all Today we go to Mt Ngauruhoe in the second of the 12 part series on the Volcanoes of New Zealand. Mount Ngauruhoe is the near perfect stratovolcano in the Tongariro National Park World Heritage Area. The volcano is the youngest of the 3 in the national park and has a summit altitude of 7175 feet (2291 metres). It last erupted in 1975 and is the most likely volcano, in my opinion to erupt next in New Zealand. ---- Ngauruhoe is in many ways the Fujiyama of New Zealand in that it has a perfectly symmetrical stratovolcano, minus the parasitic cone. Ngauruhoe of now, is a young cone formed in the place of a larger proto-Ngauruhoe, which existed on the same spot. Proto-Ngauruhoe was destroyed about 2500 years ago and the present cone began forming shortly afterwards. The old Ngauruhoe was first formed about 260,000 years ago and would have been broader and taller than the the present cone. The new Ngauruhoe was too small to divert the massive ground hugging surge from Taupo in 186 AD, which just went over the top. The volcano is an andesitic cone that shares the same magma reservoir as Tongariro, but the two run to different schedules and while Tongariro has been dormant since 1896, Ngauruhoe had several eruptions in the 20th Century, the last ones being in 1974-1975. These eruptions were mainly explosive and hurled bombs and blocks in vulcanian explosions quite effortlessly from the vent. Small pyroclastic flows travelled down the flanks about 2 kilometres and the loudest explosions were heard 80 kilometres or more from the vent. The volcano erupted andesite lava in 1954, and the glow of which was visible by night during Strombolian eruptions for more than 150 kilometres. So what does Ngauruhoe hold for the future. Well, more eruptions are a certainty and whilst averages should not be taken for granted, the volcano has averaged eruptions every seven years since records began, and it has been 27 years since the last eruption. The volcano is likely to continue the occasional lava flow from the vent and will experience explosive eruptions from time to time. These are potentially threatening for aircraft flying in the volcano's vicinity, and anyone near the cone during pyroclastic surges. Rob

Hi all This is the Third installment of the Volcanoes of New Zealand series and I have a surprise in store for the middle of the series... But this is the turn of Mount Taranaki. Rob ---- Hi all Today in the third part of our 12 part series on the volcanoes of New Zealand we go to the province of Taranaki. Taranaki is a province in the western North Island dominated by a large andesite cone which goes by the name Taranaki. Taranaki province is home to several large towns, notably Hawera, Stafford, Waitara and the city of New Plymouth. The province is noted for it's dairy farming and petroleum/gas industry which has onshore and offshore fields to tap. As for the mountain. Well it is a stratovolcano with symmetry to rival pre-1980 Mount St Helens, Fujiyama, Ngauruhoe or Mayon. The volcano's summit is about 2518 metres above sea level and has a lava dome in the crater that is left over from the last eruptions in 1755. Activity has been present at Taranaki for about 130,000 years and major eruptions occur about every 340 years with the last one being about 247 years ago. A ring plain of volcanic debris from major flank collapses and lahars is visible from the air around Taranaki and in particular the National Park. On its flank is the Pouakai volcano facing New Plymouth, due north of the volcano. Pouakai volcano is one several older volcanic features near Mount Taranaki and it has a height of 1299 metres. The largest landslides have ranged up to 3.5km3 in volume have an occurrence frame of about 1 per 20,0000- 120,000 years. Pyroclastic deposits have been found in the cuttings near the Maero stream on the northwest flankss of the volcano, and they had carbonised vegetation suggesting very hot flows killed the bush. Egmont will erupt again and one of the concerns is that because the volcano has shown itself to be punctual, because we are now nearly within the 250-340 average repose period, it is possible the volcano is now loaded. Future eruptions could consist of pyroclastic flows from dome collapse and explosions starting lahars down the rivers draining the flanks and landslides of some size and description are a real possibility. Lava flows and lava domes are possible and being andesitic in nature the magma could vary between explosions and flows. Ashfall descent may be a problem for farmers milking cows and machinery while also polluting water supplies, and being hazardous to aircraft. Mount Taranaki clearly poses a threat. Rob

Mt Taranaki http://www.kidszone.co.nz/places_mt_taranaki.htm

Rob,this is great stuff. All that is lacking are the illustrations. How good is the picture I found? This one I posted of Mt Taranaki is much different from another I found which would NOT let me borrow it. You are the best judge of what is indicative of the area.

Hi all Marcia dear, you are not going to get anything better than that. That is just awesome!! Rob

I find good stuff on the net and borrow it. Makes life so much easier! Thanks, Rob. Happy to oblige until you become as expert as is Julie!

Hi all Today I move to the fourth volcano of the Volcanoes of New Zealand, and the last of the volcanoes in the Tongariro National Park. Mount Tongariro is the closest of the three to Lake Rotoaira, which is the focal point of two water diversion schemes for electricity generation. Not readily recognisable by many as a volcano, Tongariro has the renown Ketetahi hotsprings on its northern flanks, which make a good day trip. ---- Today volcano in our 12 part look at the volcanoes of New Zealand, examines Mount Tongariro, the third volcano of the Tongariro National Park. It is not a volcano most recognise immediately, being an impressive complex with a broad summit rather than a near perfect stratovolcano like Ngauruhoe. At 1968 metres it is the lowest of the three volcanoes in the Tongariro National Park, and also low enough that the pyroclastic flow from the great Taupo eruption in 186AD, swept over the summit a full 30 kilometres away from the vent. Tongariro is near the Lake Rotoaira intake for the Tokaanu power station, so any tephra eruption is going to cause major problems with the Tongariro Power Scheme. This hydro-electric power scheme has a two pronged system of intakes, tunnels and canals on either side of the Tongariro volcanoes. Tongariro began to form possibly as much as 1 million years ago and has dimensions of 13 kilometres in length and 8 kilometres wide. Initially it was probably a single massive cone rising much higher than the current truncated summit, that lost it's prominence through explosion and collapse. Tongariro is however known to be a complex overlapping series of vents. It has experienced considerable glaciation in some parts and since the last ice age renewed volcanism has revitalised the cone. Many youthful features appear like lava flows, craters, and cones. The Te Maari Craters are a prime example of younger volcanism because activity here began about 14,000 years ago and explosions have occurred intermittently since then. It has two notable craters called Upper and Lower Te Maari, the former forming in 1868 and named after the chieftainess Te Maari. It's last eruption was in 1896-97. The Lower Te Maari Crater oozed a major flow of andesitic lava that flowed 5 kilometres down the slopes. North Crater is a large crater that was infilled by solidifying lava lake which gives it the level appearance. The depression in the side of the infilled crater is an explosion pit at least 1800 years old. Central Crater is a broad depression near the centre of the Massif but it has clearly no recognisable vent and therefore owes it's name to the surrounding rims of the other volcanic features nearby. A basaltic flow is identifiable as an ash black fan shaped flow. Blue Lake Crater is a crater with a brilliant blue water lake, that is about 9700 years old. The crater had lava fountaining in it according to interpretation of the debris lying around the crater. It is inactive. Red Crater is a brilliant red shaded feature lying within an older scoria cone. Five flows have flowed from this crater since the Taupo event of 186AD, but none in historic time. It is also the most recently active vent in the complex to have erupted. The last event was in 1926. I have not finished the Tongariro volcano in this message because this is getting a bit lengthy. Shall finish of in the next one.

CONT FROM LAST MESSAGE: The Emerald Lakes are at the foot of Red Crater and despite their proximity to the most recently active vent, the lakes are cold. Their colouring comes from minerals leached from the surrounding rocks, and are contaminated with sulphur and ammonium chloride. Oturere Craters are located at the head of the Oturere Stream, and the vent may have been one of the original on the eastern size. Since the last glaciation Red Cone at the head of the Oturere Glacier has been constructed. Several large lava flows poured from Red Crater and there was a dike that fed a slow flow at the valley head. Finally we have South Crater. This may not actually be a crater but a feature of glacial erosion. The most notable things to happen here are an explosion crater forming while flows of lava from Ngauruhoe and Red Crater have entered South Crater. Tongariro will erupt again and it had volcanic tremor as recently as this year, but it was not sustained or frequent enough to be considered problematic. However any future eruption will be violent as one has only to drive past the volcano and over the northern flanks to see the boulders the volcano has tossed out over time. Tongariro will be a massive threat to the world renown fishery on the Tongariro River and to the Tongariro Power scheme. Future eruptions can range from lava fountaining of andesitic lava to tephra fall and possible pyroclastic flows. Some flooding or local lahars are possible as well. Tongariro is clearly a volcano with a dangerous potential. Rob

Hi all For those of you who have seen "Volcano" and wondered what it would be like to see a volcano form in an urban area, you might want to read this: ------ The Auckland Volcanic field as some in this group (Wayms_99, and szerelem_02)know very well, has something odd about it - the city of Auckland which is the largest in New Zealand, lies directly over top of the only volcanic field in the country. Auckland is a city on a Geo-bomb. The last eruption was bigger than every preceding eruption in the volcanic field put together and this was the eruption of Rangitoto about 1200 AD. Not many cities can boost of having their own volcanic field with up to 48 cones, explosion craters, maars, and islands. Auckland can. It can also boost of reasonably expecting the next volcano to form within 200 years. Therefore today I choose to visit the urban volcanic field of Auckland in the hope that what gets printed here will do someone a huge favour in the future. About 60,000 years ago, at a time when the sea is much lower and the icy grips of an Ice Age are upon the land, in the ground under a dense forest canopy magma is rising. As it forces a path to the surface it makes contact with ground water leading to a violent explosion. The explosion hurls skyward, soil, rocks, and forest leaving a gaping hole in the ground and a battered forest looking much the worse. Within days or even a matter of hours magma is oozing out of the cracks to start fountaining, creating scoria cones which merge into a single mound and then lava flows start isssuing. They flow down the gently sloping valley in which the volcano is forming. It is followed by many more over the following days and these form a plateau of basalt. Now there is only a central crater erupting and it scatters ash into the sky. Eventually this stops as well. Steam drifts from the cooling lavas, but this volcano is extinct. The above account based on Geoffrey J. Cox's Fountains of Fire (1989), is based on knowledge of Mount Albert, one of the 48 known volcanoes in the Auckland area. Mount Albert was born in the early phase of the Auckland volcanoes which lasted from about 60,000 years ago to 18,000 years ago. A second phase started about 18,000 years ago and ended 9,000 years ago. Then a silence of several thousand years settled upon the field. When it ended about 800 years ago, a volcano bigger than all the preceding events put together, appeared. Rangitoto has a volume of at least 2.3km3. It is an island in the Hauraki Gulf identifiable from just about anywhere in the city and with a summit elevation of about 259 metres. Rangitoto is probably extinct, like the 47 other one-shot events preceding it. Auckland volcanoes have a number of eruption styles ranging from simply forming explosion pits with tuff rings, to building elaborate islands of reasonable size like Rangitoto. Rangitoto would have been violently active initially because it formed undersea and broke to the surface. But during eruptions once it reached above sea level, lava fountaining in the crater and broad flows would have been the most likely style. Other types included forming explosion pits where magma made contact with groundwater and went boom. They often became extinct after just forming the pit, but some went on to erupt lava and form scoria cones welded with lava. But some were violent - Three Kings hurled tuff that heavily showered the area around the vent and built up a large cone of scoria and tuff. It then got blown to bits before lava emerged and built the trio of cones that gives the volcano its name. So what can we expect from this volcanic field in the future? Well, first off, one can reasonably expect that the next volcano will appear with 200 years. It could take any one of a number of forms, as mentioned above. To monitor for signs that the next volcano is on it's way, there are seismometers in the Waitakere Ranges, and in the Auckland Regional council to pick up tremors, and tiltmeters to measure any displacement associated with magma rise. ---- In 10,000 years time I think there will be a case of a developer wanting to build something in central Auckland. He is drilling through masses of hardened lava and stumbles on something VERY strange (oh my god it is a mangled CAR!!!).... Rob

INSTITUTE OF GEOLOGICAL & NUCLEAR SCIENCES LTD. GeoNet Data Centre, Lower Hutt, New Zealand http://www.geonet.org.nz The following earthquake has been recorded by GeoNet: Reference number: 1909352/G Universal Time: 2002 August 17 0821 NZ Standard Time: 2002 August 17 8:21 p.m. Latitude, Longitude: 37.76�S 176.80�E Location: 10 km north of Matata Focal depth: 150 km Richter magnitude: 6.0 Likely to have been felt widely from Whakatane to Wellington, particularly along the east coast of the North Island.

Hi all I resume the tour of the volcanoes of New Zealand today, by going to Mayor Island in the Bay of Plenty. Mayor Island is a volcano with a not very well known geological history, but known as a significant place for Maori who valued the obsidian found on the island. ---- Mayor Island is located in the western Bay of Plenty on the western margin of the Taupo Volcanic Zone, the zone of volcanic activity stretching from Ruapehu to White Island. It is one of the least well known features of the volcanic zone and one of the most colourful in terms of eruptive behaviour. This makes Mayor Island unique in many ways because it's different eruption styles and the physical setting of the island combine to create many unique landforms. The volcano has had most styles of eruption during it's life span, with Hawaiian, Strombolian, Plinian and sub-Plinian styles occurring. There have been phreato-magmatic eruptions involving water and magma making contact and causing a steam explosion. Dome collapse and lava flows are also a feature of the volcano's history. Perhaps the most notable feature of the volcano is deposits and a caldera formed in an eruption about 6340 years ago. The eruption involved the formation of ignimbrite and was one of only a few to have an impact on the mainland. Mayor Island has had three distinct eruptive phases that initially began about 130,000 years ago. Phase 1 lasted from about 130,000 years ago to 36,000 years ago and consisted of the formation of shields that involved at least 12 explosive eruptions and 9 lava flows. Phase 2 lasted from 33,000 years ago to 8,000 years ago. It consisted of a minor caldera collapse, and at least one sub-Plinian eruption. This phase ended with the big caldera collapse 6340 years ago. The third and current phase starts with the caldera collapse and continues to this day. So what can we expect from Mayor Island in the future? Hard to say, since it has had the works in eruption styles and quite a colourful past to go with it. Since it has had them several times in the last 130,000 years one can expect in the worst case, a caldera collapse and thus a tsunami risk. However there is also the possibility of lava fountaining, ashfall deposits and pyroclastic flows possibly forming ignimbrite. Rob

That is really an interesting volcano and the URL I found for the best source of material outside of our own Rob, includes many photos and diagrams. http://www.gns.cri.nz/earthact/volcanoes/nzvolcanoes/mayorisland.htmb

Hi all As the helicopter flew across the Bay of Plenty, a volcano slowly materialised out of the haze, which covered the horizon. From afar, no steam plume was visible, as is sometimes the case and White Island today looked quiet and drowsy. The chopper flew in over the crater, to give the four passengers a view of the volcano, before looking for a spot to land. After the blades had stopped whirling five people emerged from the helicopter and into a hostile like environment where no bush was visible. No living things inhabited the barren brown crater, whose vents were 2 kilometres away. It was the start of the volcano era for one person in particular: It was a cool morning when the Glennie family drove from the Bombay Hills of Auckland, to Whakatane for something few people are lucky enough to have experienced. The thought of walking around in the crater of an active volcano is not the most appealing thing to most people, but to me, my brother and my parents, it was a dream. White Island is one of the not very many volcanoes where you can walk right up to the vent in relative safety. So anyway about 10AM we arrived in Whakatane, and had lunch. We then drove to a property about 5km from Whakatane from which the tours were being run. After signing the required paperwork and being instructed on the safety equipment on board we were airborne. It was a 30 minute flight out to the island, and the weather was spot on. Only the odd cloud about, gentle seabreezes and warm. As we approached the island a small plume became visible. Flying over the crater and looking down on a volcano into whose breached crater we were now descending. I looked down on the island wondering how long it would be before I got to repeat my dream of being in the crater of an active volcano. Once on the ground we were given hard hats and gas masks. White Island was active enough that it could send bits of tephra flying without warning so the hard hat was compulsory, and the gas masks were for up near the crater lip where wind directions within the crater could change without warning. Not a problem, but.... I am an asthmatic. We began walking across a barren lifeless crater criss crossed with drainage runoff channels from the crater. Some of them were deep enough that you had to climb down them or do the long jump. On three sides there were high crater walls, only on the outside of which did life exist. Behind us was the breached crater entrance and the sulphur works. This was awesome and we had not even reached the lip of the vents! Further on we came across a fumarole. Only a little one but the temperature was probably 80.C. Nearer to the vents we started dodging the ever-shifting gas clouds wafting from them and used our gas masks whenever the wind changed direction. The first interesting vent we came to had been discovered by TV One while filming out on the island for a documentary and thus was named TV One. Noisy Nellie was another vent. This was a steam and gas gusher whose roar was deafening close up and you had to watch the colour of the steam closely for streaks of ash, incase something was up. But not today. I had to observe it from a distance because a wind direction change had driven a gas plume back toward me. I had the mask on but because there was an erosion gully near me I had to walk TOWARD the vent and then turn away to get out of it. So I hung back incase my asthma flared. We would have collected ash, but the volcano had not erupted in recent months so no new deposits were lying around. Of great interest on the way back from the crater was the ruins of the sulphur works on which we now focus. They had been set up to get sulphur from the crater, but White Island was not having any of this carry on. In September 1914 the crater wall slumped and then fell into the crater. It plugged the vent, and for a short time, all activity ceased. But not for long. Pressure was fast building up, and the internal plumbing had water trapped in it. This quickly built up and in short order an explosion violently cleared the crater flinging out rocks, mud, ash and water. It quickly mobilised as a lahar that poured down the gullies and straight through the sulphur works. All 11 men there were killed by a short lived but fast moving lahar. Today one can see the wharf off which the sulphur was loaded, mangled buildings reduced to a skeletal state and old railway lines along which a cart was run onto the wharf for loading. The trip to White Island was a fantastic experience that I would jump at the chance to repeat. This is a once in a life time sort of thing that is not at all dangerous if done at reasonably stable volcanoes where the crater is degassing freely 24 hours 7 days a week. When this degassing stops, the problems start. Rob

I've been reading everything you have written, Rob. You are doing a fantastic job on New Zealand's volcanoes. I didn't know much about any of them except Ruapehu, but now thanks to your informative explainations on them I am learning a lot. Keep up the great work. I look foward to reading your next one and your finale. Hmmmm.....I wonder....

If I were to go to New Zealand on a ten day 'geo" tour, what would I do? What would be your recommended itinerary?

Hi all Well first I would get my bearings. I will assume that the 10 days is the Geo tour and does not count for arriving in the country, getting your bearings together and getting over jetlag. I shall assume you are doing this in our Summer (December-March). Day 1 would be spent in Auckland. Here I would suggest you go up the Sky tower and survey Auckland to see what the volcano distribution is like. Auckland has 48 one shot event volcanoes that formed and died. They are a mixture of little cones, explosion craters and a couple islands. Not all are visible, but there are a few volcanoes you can drive to the summit of: Mount Eden, One Tree Hill, possibly Mount Albert. Not sure about Three Kings. Explosion craters are found at Pukaki, and Pupuke but I am not sure about whether they still exist as such. If you are really adventurous you can spend a day on Rangitoto Island, and do the mainland volcanoes in the evening. Day 2: Drive south east to Rotorua. Rotorua is a city in an extinct caldera and has magnificent geothermal features (mudpools, hot pools, geysers a couple small mud volcanoes), which are a feature because of the natural ground water plumbing system. Spend the afternoon at say Hells Gate or Whakarewarewa (Foh-kah-ray-wa-ray-wa). Day 3: The following day, go to Te Wairoa village which is a partially excavated Maori village badly damaged by the Mount Tarawera eruption in 1886, and spend the morning there before going on an afternoon Safari up Tarawera. Day 4: Fly to Wellington. Spend the afternoon at Te Papa Museum which has a very good section on the natural forces which shaped New Zealand. Allow at LEAST 3 hours for the Museum. Alternatively make a day trip to Taupo, visit the volcano centre near Wairakei, and maybe go on a cruise around parts of the lake (bookings can be made in Taupo - population 15,000). While you are on the cruise, you might be taken to a special place of great significance to a volcano lover, but about which I am going to be a meanie, and not say anymore on this place until I complete the Volcanoes of New Zealand series. Note I would fly to Christchurch and skip Wellington in this case on Day 5. Day 6: Spend in and around Christchurch. For an afternoon drive I suggest going to Sumner which has a sort of microclimate and then dropping into Lyttelton, nestled in the crater of an extinct volcano. If you want, there is the Gondola to go up. It goes to the summit of the Port Hills and gives on a clear night, a glorious view across the city and the plains to the Southern Alps. Day 7: Drive to Greymouth at a fairly leisurely pace. Suggest following the Old West Coast Road and having a look at a large braided river (the Waimakariri River). A couple good spots to do this, and marvel at the vast alluvial plains on which you stand. Then head for Arthurs Pass, through some superb glaciated scenery. You cross an active fault at the top of Porters Pass, and it is visible from the road. In Arthurs Pass I would have lunch. After lunch you continue on to Greymouth where I would spend the night. Day 8: Drive to Franz Josef in the morning and spend the afternoon at the glacier before having dinner at one of the cafes in the township. If you are earthquake minded, walk down onto the river bed of the Waiho River and see if you can find a fault expression in the river bank anywhere. If you can, you have found the Alpine Fault. A hint: Fault is within 50 metres of the road bridge and should run through the motor camp on the south side of the river. Day 9: Drive to Fox Glacier, and onto Lake Matheson, where there is a billion dollar image visible on the surface of the lake, before driving back to Greymouth. Day 10: Retrace steps from Greymouth to Christchurch. Note this is just a short tour of a few places of geographical/geological interest in New Zealand, and I would recommend you set aside a month at least for touring. Rob

Hi all The time is approaching when I will conduct the Grand Finale to the Volcanoes of New Zealand tour. It has been great fun writing the descriptions of the various volcanoes and the personal experiences based on my own contact with the volcanoes. I will put up Part 11 which will be Tauhara in World Volcanism later on tonight, and then on Friday or Saturday Night I will display the mysterious 12th volcano. The next volcano to be entered into Rob's Geo World is Edgecumbe, which is Part 8 on the Volcanoes of New Zealand series. Rob

Hi all Driving inland from the Bay of Plenty coastline, one notices a solitary steep sided volcano looming on the horizon. Mount Edgecumbe, a relatively little known volcano has been found. It is a volcano not active in historical time, but it is a prominent feature with a summit 821 metres above sea level. It is however part of a vast volcanic centre called Okataina. But it is as an independent volcano, that we shall focus upon Mount Edgecumbe. The volcano last erupted about 2500 years ago, and has two small explosion craters in the summit. Large hydrothermal craters are situated at the western foot of the volcano, and these are thought to be about 200,000 years old (based on geothermal activity at Kawerau, which is nearby). The hydrothermal craters are thought to have erupted about 15,000 and 9,000 years ago. Edgecumbe is a volcano of dacitic and andesitic lavas, and has two large domes near the western foot of the volcano, not far from the hydrothermal craters. Edgecumbe dacite tends to have about 63% Silica content and this would result low to high level explosive eruptions. Despite the lack of activity from Edgecumbe for the last 2,500 years, the relatively short time span that this time period represents suggests there is still more to come. Edgecumbe can be expected to erupt andesite and/or dacite lava's which will add to the steep sided cone. Some lava's from Edgecumbe have flowed as far as the Tarawera River, and future flows may divert it. Alternatively it might produce pyroclastic flows of the latter lava which may mean explosive eruptions and tephra fall are possible. Reports of Edgecumbe's demise are probably exaggerated. Rob

Hi all When most people think of a volcano, they think of an inverted ice cream cone of rock with the ice cream on the flanks as snow. Your normal volcano looks very similar to Ngauruhoe, pre-1980 Mount St Helens, and Fujiyama. So it is a great surprise to find that you are nestled in a volcano with no clear outline. It might be unsettling to know that the volcano whose crater you are in, is one of a fortunately very rare type. Driving around the lakes east of Rotorua you think the volcanoes are the rhyolite domes of Tarawera, Haro Haro, and the cone of Mount Edgecumbe to the east. It is surprising therefore to find ignimbrites from a volcano covering the area. But the source of the ignimbrite is not readily visible. Maybe it dissappeared. Maybe it was dispersed or destroyed in later events, or maybe it is buried under debris left behind from events in which up to 500km3 of material was thrown out. But it is there, it is dormant, and it's name is Okataina. After a break, I resume the tour of the New Zealand volcanoes. This Part 9: Okataina Okataina is not readily visible as any individual volcano, but yet it is there, hidden from all. With no single crater readily visible on the surface, the untrained eye has a point to make when it cannot distinguish any notable features. To be fair other volcanoes have grown in the caldera like the rhyolite domes of Tarawera, Mount Edgecumbe and Ngongotaha, plus a host of lesser known domes, flows and craters. These have filled in part of it, and lakes cover several craters. The Pink and White Terraces - sometimes called the eighth wonder of the world - existed until 1886, when Lake Rotomahana was raised by the eruption of Tarawera. All these are features within a vast caldera that has seen some of the largest eruptions in New Zealand history and which has dropped ash as far away as the Chatham Islands. Okataina was born in violent fashion about 50,000 years ago when a series of six very large eruptions excavated about 500km3 to form a vast caldera. The caldera has dimensions of 18 kilometres by 25 kilometres or 450 kilometres square. These eruptions were devastating in form and covered larges swathes of the central North Island in sheets of pumice and ash, which welded into ignimbrite. A second series of eruptions between 50,000 and 24,000 years ago was somewhat smaller, but still managed to transform part of the caldera, and drop ash and pumice over parts of the central North Island. At least eleven eruptions have occurred at the Okataina volcano in the last 21000 years and have been of rhyolitic or basaltic composition. The last event was in 1886 when Tarawera had a basaltic scoria eruption. More on that in Part 10. So what types of eruption does Okataina exhibit? The eruptions of the last 21,000 years have been mainly rhyolitic in composition throwing out pumice and ash, but also extruding lava domes of rhyolitic composition (Tarawera). Okataina caldera however can produce rhyolitic ash and pumice in most events and ignimbrite when the volcano is in a full blown caldera event. There is no way to time the next eruption, but that signs of unrest include earthquakes generated by rising magma. Seiches of water in the several lakes that help make up the caldera maybe an indicator that earthquakes are occurring, while changes in gas emissions and composition might indicate what the magma is doing, and whether the vent is blocked. A large eruption at Okataina is fortunately very unlikely, but small to moderate size events that are locally destructive are probable. Rotorua, a popular tourist destination and city of considerable cultural significance is only 10 kilometres from the caldera. Add to that some of the finest farmland in New Zealand, the Kawerau paper mill, several towns including Tokoroa, Taupo, Whakatane, Kawerau, and others with a combined population of over 40,000 people are all nearby. Any eruption at Okataina will be destructive, however small it is. Rob

Hi all How many people here have climbed a lava dome, be it extinct or dormant, or active? The next part of the Volcanoes of New Zealand series is focussing on the dome volcano of Mount Tarawera, with its three domes. The largest eruption to occur since Europeans settled the country, occurred at Mount Tarawera, which is due east of Rotorua, and part of the Okataina caldera. So, moving on now to I want to introduce the three rhyolite domes of Tarawera - Wahanga (Wa-hung-a), Ruawahia (Ru-a-wa-he-a), and Tarawera (Ta-rah-we-ra). Tarawera is a low squat set of domes with truncated summits that reach the unimpressive height of 1111 metres above sea level. Rising out of the eastern shore of Lake Tarawera, Mount Tarawera is a youngish volcano which first began to form about 18,000 years ago. This eruption consisted of a mix of basaltic and rhyolitic magma being erupted. The rhyolitic magma contributed to the steep sided domes that make up the triumvirate, while the basalt is probably the lava that formed the thick flows which terminate as a steep slope dropping into Lake Tarawera. On June 10, 1886, at about 1.30AM the people of Te Wairoa and other villages were awoken by a deafening boom, as Tarawera was rent from one end to the other, with a line of vents opening from the domes, across Lake Rotomahana to the Waimangu valley. The locals were terrified. A chain of fiery clouds soared skyward from the vents and massive explosions of steam mud and lake water were raining mud down upon the people cowering in the McRae Hotel. People who bravely (or stupidly)went outside to see what the racket was, were showered upon by ash from the volcano, mud from the chain of craters erupting through Lake Rotomahana, and saw lightning doing a brilliant dance in the towering eruption columns. From up close, it seemed like Hell. From afar, it gave rise to fantastic stories of the Russians trying to invade New Zealand, for the explosions sounded like cannon in Auckland. Hell is probably a more accurate description of the eruption, because as it progressed, the atmosphere had the sulphur dioxide smell of falling ash, roofs and walls caved in burying people, chunks of scoria shattered windows and brilliant lightning lit the sky. As dawn broke over the central North Island, Tarawera quietened down, but hydrothermal activity along the rift and in Waimangu was just starting. 153 people were dead and hundreds more were injured. Three villages including Te Wairoa were in ruins, and for the most part buried in a mass of ash and mud. The 1886 eruption was a painful reminder to the people of the time, that they lived in a geologically dynamic environment whose forces achieve spectacular and often violent results. The eruption of Tarawera had largely ended by 6.00AM but the hydrothermal activity in the newly formed rift of vents (22 in all dispersed in a line 17 kilometres long), was just beginning. This would continue for another several years and claim several more lives, and damage more property. Explosions at Frying Pan flat, and Echo crater highlighted the danger of building near hydrothermal vents. On April Fools Day 1917 Frying Pan flat exploded without warning, dropping super heated rocks and mud on a cafe for tourists, that was on a ridge overlooking the vent. The building was wrecked and all 3 people inside were killed. Future eruptions at Tarawera could be either rhyolitic or basaltic in terms of magma erupted, and may include scoria eruptions like 1886 or rhyolitic dome building. Basaltic lavas may also get as far as Lake Tarawera and pyroclastic flows are possible in dome building events. Future eruptions at Tarawera are inevitable and a hazard is posed to the people of Rotorua who live close to the volcano, the people of Kawerau which is downwind from the domes and also the people near the coast, because the Tarawera River drains Lake Tarawera. Rob

Hi all What do people think of the narratives I have written to date, and do people have questions about the volcanoes of New Zealand as yet? Bearing in mind there are two more still to come and the last one redefines the meaning of the word "GRAND". Rob

Hi all The eleventh volcano in our tour is a dome volcano. This is Mount Tauhara, to the northeast of Taupo. It formed at least 65,000 years ago during one of the eruptive phases in the Taupo caldera. There is a story from Maori folklore about Tauhara but I cannot find it, and have no idea where to look for it. I searched through all my reading material about NZ volcanoes and cannot find it either. So I will post the geological history of Tauhara and continue looking. Today we come to the 11th volcano in the tour of New Zealand's active and potentially active volcanoes. Tauhara is a lone dome volcano about 15 kilometres north east of Taupo. It is dacitic in origin, with the lava being viscous in nature. The dome has no record of explosive eruptions and it is thought the lava would have oozed out quietly and solidified. Tauhara is the most significant dacite in the Taupo volcanic centre, where 98% of all material is rhyolitic in composition. Tauhara formed thousands of years ago, about 65,000 to be precise, and has had 7 distinct phases judging by the lavas erupted from the volcano. It might erupt again, and therefore reports of it's demise are exaggerated. There is not much published data on Mount Tauhara and I was unable to find anything that the IGNS did not say, in my books and what online information I knew of. Rob

Me again And now we come to the Grand Finale of the Volcanoes of New Zealand series. It is a time to reflect back over the last eleven volcanoes, with their quirks, their stories and their history. It has been immense fun writing the guide to the volcanoes here and I have learnt a lot about them as well and given you a personal rundown of a few of them. But now, Ladies and Gentlemen, I want to introduce a volcano that is deceptively calm at the moment, and lives in the most unlikely place one would expect a volcano. It is a volcano that is little known to most, and not super well understood by those in the know. It has a history of massive variation in eruption style, and when I think of it's last eruption, I hear a distant drum beat, an attention riveting sound. It starts out softly, growing in intensity, before fading. You hear it again, closer and more urgent this time, with the chilling call of a Scottish war pipe in the back ground. The drum and war pipe fades, but then there is an ice cold groundswell as string instruments join in, revving up the orchestra... Ladies and Gentlemen, this is the Taupo (Tow-po)volcano. Rob

Drum roll please ---- I plan to do this magnificent volcano, in a two part series which firstly looks at the geological history of the volcano, and then a narrative based on the last eruption of Taupo. Around 330,000 years ago the central North Island was rent an eruption from several vents which poured ash and pumice skyward in a grand spectacle that would become a style typical of the larger eruptions from the newly born Taupo volcano. Although the details of the first 300,000 years of eruptive history for the volcano are sketchy, it is possible to concentrate on events in the last 27,000 years in some detail. It has be deduced that there have at least 28 eruptions from Taupo in the last 330,000 years, a date based on an exceptionally massive eruption from the Whakamaru centre. This is one of several large centres of major volcanism in the central North Island, which include Taupo and Okataina. About 150,000 years ago activity formed a pumice rich ignimbrite which is found around Acacia Bay and the Mount Tauhara dacite. Several basaltic scoria cones were also formed, but information is very incomplete because most deposits from this phase are still buried. Further activity followed between 65,000 and 27,000 years ago with the older eruptions producing a coarse pumice, while newer activity produced a fine ash, that geologists think suggests the eruption was through lake water. It was about 26,500 years ago that the biggest display of volcanism took place. The dimensions of this event, the Oruanui event are colossal - something in the order of 300 cubic kilometres of ignimbrite was erupted. This was in addition to 500 cubic kilometres of pumice and ashfall plus an unknown volume of material left in the lake. Last year the estimated size of the eruption was raised to a figure of 1200 cubic kilometres of material all up. This includes the ash and pumice fall, the ignimbrite that formed as the superheated ground hugging surges sped across the landscape, the vast volume of material dumped in the lake. It adds to the sum, a volume of fine grain material that got into the stratosphere and carried around the world. But it was not the sheer size of the eruptions that eventually earned the volcano it's notoriety. It was violence - sheer violence demonstrated quite graphically by the most recent event, the infamous Taupo eruption, 186AD. For in the summer of the year 186AD (a season suggested by the pollen sample of the trees taken). The eruption, suggested by some to be one of the most violent in the world in recent geological time, initially only affected the immediate area around the vent, which was above water. However as the magma was expelled, the roof of the magma chamber caved in. The vent sunk below the water line immediately allowing water to pour into the vent. With huge volumes of water entering the magma chamber, the eruption suddenly and rapidly intensified. Based on deposits that came out, it has been suggested that in a day 20 cubic kilometres of material was expelled, and now it worsened even further. The simply unbelievable had become the almost inconceivable, as a further 30 cubic kilometres of material soared skyward. Not surprisingly gravity had something to say, and with impossible speed the vast bulk of the airborne material came straight back to earth. It hit the ground with a thud more like the shockwave of a nuclear bomb and transformed into a frictionless gas filled mass rolling across the landscape. The effects on wildlife, and vegetation were apocalyptic. Pollen samples taken from trees in the area of devastation that extended from Waiouru to Rotorua, showed that originally a bracken covered the land, but a forest reappeared in 200 years. The difference being the new one was dominated by Matai and Totara, instead of Rimu and beech. With vast volumes of volcanic debris being washed down the rivers, and the soil having been fish, aquatic species, birds, and ground grubbers would have had a hard time initially trying to adapt to a change in the landscape. Since that last catastrophic eruption, Taupo has lain dormant and may well does so for another few hundred years yet. But let there be no mistake about Taupo. It will erupt again, but the most likely events are likely to be small to moderate size, yet explosive dome building events, possibly with small pyroclastic flows. Occaisional scoria cones of basaltic origin are possible. What ever happens in the future however is likely to be destructive to local people. Aircraft may be diverted, farming, and most every day activities disrupted to some extent in the immediate vicinity of the volcano. Water supplies will be polluted and electricity generation may be affected by the ash getting into machinery. Fortunately, a caldera volcano is likely to offer significant warning of unrest, and there are numerous ways of keeping tabs on indicators. Ground deformation may occur as magma rises in the volcano, and earthquakes caused by rock breaking as the magma rises within are two signs. Gas changes will show what type of magma is rising, and chemical testing of initial ash samples will show when new magma is being erupted. To most people, Taupo is a place of great beauty and great scenery. They are right, the scenery is great and grand, and there are many physical and cultural attractions in the area to draw the tourists. This is fine, as long as people understand that eventually they prepare for the day when the caldera will awaken. It may not be for another 500 years, but the day will come. Of that, geologists are certain. Rob

Hi all So, people. That was the history of the Taupo volcano. Coming shortly is the narrative for one of the greatest eruptions on earth. But I ask you what have you learned about the volcanoes of New Zealand. What do you want to know and do you want to get up close and personal with any of them? For me, priorities are to see Taranaki up close, and explore a few more of the Auckland volcanoes. Get some scoria from the craters of some of the Auckland cones and some andesite from the Tongariro volcanoes. I have learned that there is much more to our volcanoes than just the visible ones. Reading the GNS information pages on the volcanoes and their histories, it is obvious that even I know not enough. As for getting up close and personal, I would happily do it with any of the volcanoes I mentioned. Rob

For Rob, an illustration of "Tarawera's Crater"

Taupo to follow as soon as I can find an image. http://www.laketauponz.com/wtsd/volcanic.asp

Impressive, Rob! Thanks! Let me know when and if you want more images! I'll be happy to help!

Do a bit about geothermal areas of New Zealand, Rob. Or shall I? If I do it, I will put it in Geo 30.

Hi all I will happily. I like the image of Wairakei Geothermal field - with the second oldest geothermal power station in the world. Wairakei generates 152 megawatts of electricity, and is the larger of two major geothermal plants in the North Island. Wairakei relies on water from the Waikato River on whose banks the powerstation is located. Being about 5 kilometres north of Taupo, Wairakei is part of the Craters of the moon thermal reserve, where you can find The water is fed by a pumping station for injection In the back ground I think the mountain is Tauhara, and Lake Taupo is in the upper left. Wairakei power station has an extensive pipeline network and a notable feature of the pipes is the loops every 305 metres. These allow for steam expansion. The other power station that is geothermal is Ohaaki (O-ha-key). Ohaaki is a geothermal station about 40 kilometres northwest of Taupo and it is defined by the massive 105 metre high cooling tower, which is visible long before you reach the power station. Ohaaki has a generating capacity of 102 megawatts and is the newer geothermal station. It was completed in the late 1980s and when I visited it in 1994 it had been fully functional for about 5 years. Ohaaki also has the expansive network of steam pipelines extending from two fields on either side of the Waikato River. Rob

Hi all A few images of New Zealand volcnanoes to come soon, hopefully. But in the meantime, enjoy these: http://community.webshots.com/photo/153370/196042 - an explosion crater in rural country near Rotorua. I am not sure if it is extinct, but I would not entirely count on it. http://community.webshots.com/photo/33191818/33192320qpxhrZ - Tongariro volcano from the summit. Looking north. http://community.webshots.com/photo/153370/196036 - looking north over the Rotorua caldera, one of about 8 in the central North Island. Fortunately this one is probably extinct. Rob

Hi all Craig moved out, so I have no internet connection (it was run through his computer, and the family one will be set up on Monday). Because of that I am doing this from a place in town. So I will be offline until AT LEAST Monday if not longer. Do not panic. In the interim I am getting some things I have been procrastinating on, done, so do not worry. I am alive and fine, just in a quiet patch. Oh, and by the way, the Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences now has a webcam of Ngauruhoe. You can now see one of our two "Fujiyama's". http://www.gns.cri.nz - geonet or volcanoes for more. Rob

Hi all You recall me mentioning Craters in post 153? Well it erupted today. Craters of the Moon is an active Geothermal area about two kilometres from Wairakei geothermal field and 5 kilometres from Wairakei power station. Rob ---- Geothermal eruption blasts tourist site Tourists visiting a geothermal area near Taupo got to see a little more than what was advertised in the brochure. After 18 months of dormancy, the "crater of the moon" lived up to its name, showering thick grey ash over a popular walking track. In a spectacular eruption, the geothermal area coated a 200 metre area late on Tuesday morning. The site is visited by around 100,000 tourists every year but the blast has now made it barely accessible. The Department of Conservation says the eruption has peaked but it is keeping an eye on it. Locals say it is the largest eruption they can remember. Published on Sep 17, 2002

Hi all The Craters of the Moon eruption saga continued today and I understand it has thrown out between 2-25 centimetres of ash from the vent. The eruption started yesterday when a vent that had been dormant for 18 months erupted ash and pumice in an explosive event that took people by surprise. The ash and pumice is not representative of a current volcanic eruption but of the vast deposits left behind from eruptions at Taupo, Okataina, and possibly Oruanui (O-ru-a-nu-i). The sudden resumption of activity has come as a surprise and today the number of people visiting the reserve tripled. Unless new vents open up the danger is low, because the devastated area is off-limits. Rob

Hi all SPRING IS HERE!!! The glorious northwester was going for 4 days last week, and dropped about 300mm of rain over 5 days in the mountains. I have been quite busy at University with my research group putting together our Geog 309 research into public perceptions of the earthquake risk in Christchurch. This coming Friday, Saturday and Sunday I will be in Wainui with the group to present to the Canterbury Development Corporation, the results of the research. Umm... what else? Oh yeah, I am pleased to say that later this week I will be meeting a PhD student doing his degree in medical geography on Christchurch's air pollution problem, who is from Texas. Jeff Wilson. Anyway, thats all from me. Peace love and volcanoes.... Rob

What part of Texas is Jeff from, Rob?

Hi all Will find out. Watch this space for two things. The response to the question just asked, and (drums please)..... the long awaited narrative to the Taupo eruption. I am in the process of entering the narrative onto the computer, and will let you know about it in the next few days. Rob

It was a gloriously sunny day as a bird swooped in low over the crystalline waters of Lake Taupo, before levelling of and landing on the sandy beach.. To the south, three volcanoes rose serenely above the hills. Far off in the distance big white puffy cumulus clouds grew with on the back of air convection. The clouds soared into the skies above the lake and the fantastic ignimbrite cliffs. In the foreground, kids ran and frolicked in the water, and on the beach picking up pumice pieces, throwing them into the cool blue waters of a lake that stretched for almost as far as the eye could see. Offshore boats towed jet skiers, sat in the water with fishing rods dangling over the edge, or took excited screaming kids biscuiting. Their parents watched over them as they sunbathed in the summer sun. This was heaven to them, and rightfully so. Not one of them knew, or cared that the place many call heaven has a geological history of stunning violence, revered by geologists, respected by all volcanologists, and a heada he for planners. But for all it�s beauty, Lake Taupo is a lake inside a massive volcanic caldera. A caldera nearly 700 square kilometres in size and more than 500 feet deep in places, formed by a series of massive eruptions over a 330,000 year time span, as well as many smaller events. The most notable of the major eruptions was the massive Oruanui eruption 26,500 years ago. That eruption rivals in size the great American caldera eruptions. The Oruanui event discharged 300 km� into the air as ash and pumice fall, while another roughly 500 km� was flung across the land in huge ground hugging surges. Finally 400 km� that was left in the vent, or found dispersed out to sea, rounds of the equation. A staggering 1200 km� had been discharged. After this event, Taupo fell silent for a while, before embarking on small-scale dome building. For centuries it lay calm and serene. The forest returned, the bird life and ground creatures returned. All seemed perfect � until the spring of AD 185. This is the story of the most famous eruption, an event 1800 years ago that caused fantastic sunsets halfway around the world in Rome and China, which astronomers must have wondered about. No one saw the eruption up close, which is just as well considering the climax was an apocalypse that obliterated a 20,000 square kilometre area of the central North Island, decimating the populations of every living thing in the area, and having a severe impact on the climate in the Southern Hemisphere. This is the story of one of the greatest eruptions known to mankind. ________________________________________________________________________________

Early signs Deep down in the Earth during the summer of AD 186 strange things were afoot. Swarms of micro-tremors few and far between at first, but increasing in intensity and frequency were persistently rising beneath Lake Taupo. Far before the age of volcanology and scientific instrumentation, only the wildlife picked up the strange happenings or noticed changes in the physical parameters of the environment around them. Far before the curiosity of humans wondering what was driving the changes, this slipped past virtually unnoticed. At first it was just the odd quake, scaring the daylights out of their young, or the waft of stinking hydrogen sulphide from a gas vent in the nearby thermal reserves. The problems were only occasional and rarely troublesome. But then ground deformation began to displace the ground, steepening the slopes of the hills around the volcano and in particular the land immediately around the vent. Slowly but surely the monster was awakening. Slowly but surely a most terrible resolve to obliterate the pristine land, was filling a volcano with an ice-cold temper. For the land was slowly deforming, slowly swelling as gas rich magma rose from deep within. The magma was rhyolitic in composition, a gas rich mix prone to exploding rather than flowing quietly. Micro-tremors were persistent with each one signalling rock being broken by the rise of the magma within. Steam vents were puffing out increasing volumes of gas, including sulphur dioxide, carbon monoxide and hydrogen sulphide. As the magma approached the surface the ground began to crack and crumble. It began to warm with the approach of the underground furnace, tremors were now visibly swaying trees on the surface, causing seiching in the lake and loosening rocks on the cliffs. Then a noisy explosion broke the crust sending rocks and mud flying in all directions, as the magma, on making contact with ground water, immediately exploded. The birds, the ildlife, and the fish bolted or died from the bombardment of scalding mud, and steadily rising water temperatures. The trees began to take on the appearance of those in a war zone � shattered, and mangled. But this was only the beginning. For things were slowly but steadily deteriorating. The initial explosion was followed by further events as the magma began contacting the water on a broad front, showering mud, rocks and ash across the landscape. As the explosions continued, the composition of material gave way increasing to a muddy shower of water-saturated ash. These explosions were hardly beginning to settle when things suddenly took a decisive turn for the worse� CONT PART 2

CONT FROM PART 1 As the first of many rising pulses of magma was expelled the ground began to subside. Not far away lay the beach of Lake Taupo, and beyond that a vast reservoir of cold lake water. A chemical equation would show something like this: Cold lake water + magma = EXPLOSION!! And that was precisely what was about to happen. The cool water was separated from the vent by only metres of increasingly cracked ground, slowly subsiding. Time was fast running out for every living thing within 90 kilometres from the vent, for as the distance between the water and the vent diminished, more like the time left on a time bomb before it explodes, the time was rapidly heading in the same direction. The difference is this would be on a much grander, and scarier scale. This would be on a scale so huge, that any man made weapon this powerful would be declared criminal by each and every nation on earth. But Nature plays to Natures rules, and her rules say that this is just fine. As the summer progressed, the seismic drums were heard to be beating ever more menacing tunes, and from the brass there now came an ominous note in the pace and power of the eruption. As the mud eruptions subsided the first massive explosion rocked the landscape, confirmation of the seismic disturbances, the ground deformation, and changes in gas being indicators of the impending eruption.It reverberated through the forest, punching at the eardrums of the wildlife, and lacerated with sonic booms. Ash fell like snow starting fires, and choking the ground grubbing creatures with a smelly sulphurous residue. Nearer the vent volcanic bombs, blocks and pumice fell straight back into the vent, only to be blasted into fragments as the next pulse of magma made contact with the air and exploded. Out of the vent rose a towering column of ash, and pumice 25 kilometres high and spreading on top, carrying ash eastward. It was laced with lightning, with thunder that clapped rumbled and rolled through the sky. Any remaini g wildlife now fled, convinced that the end had come, as it already had for so many birds and fish The powerful eruption had penetrated the upper atmospheric jet streams and ash was now being carried toward the Chatham Islands, some 500 miles to the southeast. The more the magma was sucked out of the reservoir, the more the ground subsided. The more the more the ground subsided, the closer the magma got to the lake water. Yet day-by-day, the eruption had gone on in a crescendo that grew ever louder, and whose climax was now approaching. CONT PART 3

CONT FROM PART 2 By night it looked like Hell. A massive, brilliant fiery red column of pyrotechnics, laced with forked lightning doing a tango through the clouds. It was accompanied by deafening claps of thunder, near constant ash fall, and almost continuous tremors. The air smelled of sulphur from the deluge of ash. By daytime the land looked desolate � a grey barren wasteland, devoid of life surrounding the vent. A vent now ringed by cracked ground, shaking with every injection of magma. For the distance between the lake water and the exposed vent was now very small and the existing cracks were deepening and widening. Taupo would not hang on much longer. Then the water began seeping into the vent. Uh-ohhhh�. No one heard it flash to steam. No one saw the explosion that dug a hole into which million litres of water now surged. The ground around the vent started to subside from the cracking ground with a steadily increasing covering of debris. A trickle of water from saturated debris began to flow back into the vent, slowly at first but steadily increasing in volume. Earthquake levels by now were fever pitch and an almost continuous succession of events, which were so close together, that no human would have known the difference. Like Bolero in the closing minutes, the noise of the eruption, an ever more intense ear splitting crescendo rose above the cacophony of volcanic bombs whistling through the air, the roar of the monstrous Plinian column climbing to the heavens, and the rumble of the non stop seismic activity. So it went on for a few days, during which time, by all accounts a human could have been forgiven for thinking it was the end of the world� And then, in an instant, all hell broke in an indescribable racket. Like a bomb going of underneath your feet, the ground shook with a fury not seen, and then literally exploded. The water had done the unthinkable. It had made contact with the magma undergone and the whole lot � the water, the magma, the overlying debris - had simply gone BOOM!!! The ground lurched massively, The column began to splay surges across the lake as it expanded outwards and upwards. It soared and soared through the atmosphere, climbing to impossible heights with dizzying speed enough to make anyone nauseous. As it climbed the heavier material, mainly pumice, bombs and blocks began raining down once more upon the battered land. But now at the climax of the eruption a new phenomena was about to play it�s hand. Column collapse. As the cloud punched it�s way far into the stratosphere, the law of gravity began to influence the eruption column. The rate of ascent began to slow, but not fast enough. The sheer volume of material that had been pumped out, simply could not stay airborne, and it now began to descend at break neck speed. Down it went. Down to the ground, and down through 55 kilometres of the atmosphere. Then it hit the ground, HARD!! Driven on by an instantaneous shockwave, the collapsing column seemed to implode downwards, and then explode outwards. It swept outwards at breath-taking speeds sweeping high over the summits of Tongariro, Pihanga and the infantile Ngauruhoe. Its immense heat welded a rock together over an area bigger than 20,000 square kilometres. When peace finally descended on the devastated land, the view from the ground, and the air would have been heart breaking. From the future sites of Waiouru and Rotorua, some 170 kilometres apart, the North Island resembled no-mans land. A land that had been covered in lush forest, that rang out with a myriad of bird calls, fresh cool blue waters, and with majestic mountains on the southern horizon, looked like the moon. A lifeless barren grey wasteland, pock marked with craters from falling debris, steaming and sizzling away as the masses of heated debris began the long gradual cool down. The volcano was silent, having expended it�s energy once more. The wildlife was dead or scared into fleeing for safety. No more did the Kakapo boom from the ground floor while scavenging for insects and warms to feed on. No more did the rimu forests of old stand proudly, and no more, did the lake look like a mirror of beauty. CONT END NOTE PART 4

CONT FROM PART 3 End note Today, the visitor would be hard pressed to say that such an apocalyptic event occurred. For the forest returned within 200 years, though it comprised matai and totara instead of rimu. The lake now holds an abundance of fish, of both native and introduced species. Human development of the land began with the arrival of Maori and was furthered by Europeans. Around the lake towns accommodating a total of nearly 20,000 people have sprung up, with dairy farming, tourism, forestry, power generation and a world renown trout farm all earn big dollars. No one knows what the Taupo volcano will do in the future, except that future eruptions are guaranteed. The volcano has had a variable behavioural pattern with quiet dome building events at one end of the scale, small to moderate explosive events in between, and the occasional massive caldera eruption. Volcanologists have no idea what style the next eruption will come in, how big it will be or when it is expected. But there is one thing about which, everyone who knows the volcano�s past agrees on: Taupo is only dormant, and one day in the future, though maybe not for another 100 years or more, it will erupt. Of that, they are certain. ---- Rob

Hi all So, what do people think of the last and the greatest of the New Zealand volcanoes? Rob

Whew!!! What an experience! Having lived close to a volcano for many years, I am less than thrilled at the thought of doing so ever again. However, it allowed me to feel the grit and the heat and hear the sounds of what lapilli and other ejecta is like... and how frightening it can be.

Oh, BTW, your writing is excellent. You seem to have really been there. That takes a lot of talent. Thanks! Extraordinary!! I'll be reading it again and commenting more.

Hi all Yesterday was a rarity in Christchurch weather. Yesterday we had something not seen for more than a decade.... T O R N A D O Yesterday was a day some orchardists would rather forget, but a day of great excitement for weather enthusiasts, as a hailstorm carrying golf-ball size hail swept over the city on a disturbed westerly airstream. The storm arrived about 4PM and was announced by two things: 1)A flash of lightning that cut power to three suburbs for about 5 minutes. It was followed by a deep bass rumble of thunder. 2)A deafening racket preceding the hail. For a full minute at most places in Christchurch a noise that was uniform in pitch was heard preceding the hailstorm. Most knew that the hail was going to be bad when they heard the noise coming toward them, a noise that grew in volume. It was the only thing we could hear at work immediately prior to the storm. Rob

We had some heavy rains and a power outage here also. We didn't have any deafening roars though. Sounds pretty intense, Rob.

Hi all I have copied a picture from Stuff.co.nz and I want to put it up here. Can Marcia or Julie show me how to FTP or do for me if they have not the time to teach me? It is of the tornado... Rob

Email me and I'll do it for you. mailto://terry@spring.net

We had three tornado warnings and a long evening in the basement last Sunday. We seem to have missed the worst of it, though 33 people were killed by the storm's tornadoes. Today is snow flurries. Rob, did you get to see the funnel cloud? I'd like to see one - from a distance!

Rob, it is just easier for you to send me the images and I will do the FTP stuff and send you the link you need to post the pictures. That's what Julie does!

I'll do anything I can to help. Email sent to Rob.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ROB! HOPE YOU HAVE A SUPER, AMAZING, AWESOME, FANTASTIC, WILD, CRAZY,AND MEMORABLE BIRTHDAY! HOPE ALL YOUR BIRTHDAY WISHES COME TRUE. LOVE AND HUGS, ROB.

Hi all HUGS and thanks. I have done well, I got 2 6-pack Canterbury Draught, an egg shaped piece of Kyalinite, incense sticks, a bottle of Appletise (apple flavoured fizzy), and a book with advanced ditigal maps of New Zealand and an accompanying text on the geological processes for that area. Nature gave me an earthquake measuring 5.3 in the North Island, at a depth of 110 km, and quite close to the volcanic caldera of Taupo... Rob

Oh NO!!! I missed your birthday and now, probably Julie's because my list is on the computer in Hilo. Argggggggh! Belated Hauoli Na Hanau, Lopaka

Hi all SO CLOSE, YET SO FAR.... This is the story of how I and a lady from Chicago came to within hours of meeting each other in a common love for geology, yet kept apart by series of unforseen circumstances. I met Jennifer Wischer in October after scouring the list of World Volcanism for more people to put on my list of IM contacts. Jennifer is a geology student and mother of one who has been involved in planning from the day I met her, until last Friday for a geology trip to New Zealand in conjunction with Victoria University in Wellington. Right up until about last Friday she said she was not sure if she would be able to meet with me at all. But on Saturday she IM'ed me and we agreed to meet at 6.PM on Monday in town. All of a sudden things were suddenly looking incomparably brighter, and I was on cloud nine. HOW THINGS CAN CHANGE IN 36 HOURS At 11AM on Monday I get a phone call. I guessed that it was Jennifer, and that she was saying she had arrived in the country, would I meet her at 6PM? Well.... It was Jennifer, but the news was not what I wanted to hear. She was stuck in Honolulu because of a medical emergency on her flight. Could we postpone 24 hours. I said yeah, and to phone back when she did get in. So, I stayed home all day because she said she could be on the move within minutes. Okay, at 2AM she touches down in Auckland and at 3AM she is through customs, and a thoroughly wacked girl is finally in New Zealand for a six week geology trip. At 8AM she is in a taxi bound for the airport and thinking she will get there with time to spare, she is stunned to find the flight is already gone. More delays as she rebooks on another flight. Finally at 2PM she gets into Christchurch, a full 27 hours behind time, and then gets another shock. Her professor announces the plan of action for the remainder of the day. Dinner was after a briefing at 4PM, and everyone had to attend.... You can imagine the despair she felt when she phoned me at 6PM to say that she could not make it. I only had to listen to the changing tone of her voice to understand that she was as disappointed as myself. To make it even worse, she would be on a bus to Queenstown at 7AM and thus would have needed an early night, anyway. When I got off the phone my shoulders felt like they had heavy weights on them, which I could not get off. Was it just me, or did I detect her voice almost breaking when I said bye? I shall not find out for at least a couple weeks, and I now have to wait until 2004 to go see her myself in the United States. It was bad in more ways than one because I also wasted two days waiting to see what was going to happen, and I am now resigned to a 2004 meeting date. UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!! Rob

Me again The only consolation is I am now just 24 points away from completing a 102 point Bachelor of Science degree in Geography, and that I can afford to add Jennifer onto the list of people I visit in the US during 2004. Rob

*HUGS* Rob...how disappointing that must be.

Hi all Oh well. She will be much the wiser about NZ when I see her, and we can have a nice long conversation about Kiwi plate tectonics. Rob

Me again Anyway, I have to mention the town of Franz Josef. As you well know from earlier posts it sits on the Alpine Fault, and is bordered to the south by the Waiho River. Well, FJ is a town in trouble. The Waiho River carries a huge volume of sediment on it's short turbulent trip to the Tasman Sea, and the sediment has reached dangerous levels in FJ, where it has raised the river bed several metres above the surrounding countryside. This huge discharge of sediment makes the river a dirty brown at all times, but now the problem is how to help several businesses on the south side of the river. For in an earthquake or prolonged rainstorm there is a risk of a debris flow pouring down the valley from the glacier or a landslide plugging it, forming a lake. Obviously any landslide forming a dam is not going to last long, and certainly not in a land where uplift is 30 millimetres (1.2 inches)per year and rainfall 6,000 millimetres per annum. So you see, there is a problem. FJ Glacier is only 2 hours walk from the town, if you were to walk up the river from the township, or five minutes drive and an hour's walk from the end of the access road. With the Southern Alps all around you in the valley, three faults within 3 kilometres of the town and a river that can flood after just a couple hours heavy rain, the Waiho River is not a place you want to hang around once things start happening. Rob

Rob, is there a webcam on this river, too? Yes, there is definitly a problem

Hi all I emailed the Civil Defence manager for the West Coast Regional Council about it. Am awaiting her reply. Rob

Hi all To jolt you all out of your complacency: Reference Number: 2019057/G Universal Time: 2003 Jan 25 21:30 NZ Daylight Time: 2003 Jan 26 10:30 Latitude, Longitude: 40.43�S, 176.14�E Focal Depth: 30 km Richter Magnitude: 5.6 20 km east of Woodville Will have been felt throughout the southern North Island, particularly in Woodville, Dannevirke, Weber and Porangahau. ---- There have been occasional clusters of earthquakes in Wairarapa too, with notable clusters in the 1930s and 1990s. The former was a catastrophic series of earthquakes ranging in magnitude between 7.2 and 7.9. The biggest of them hit Napier and Hastings on February 3, 1931 and killed 256 people in Napier and Hastings. The climax was in 1942 where two earthquakes just FIVE WEEKS apart measuring magnitude 7.2 and 7.6 rocked Masterton. Rob

Hi all I have to tell you that the earthquake did some damage. It shook stuff off the shelves in several stores in towns around Woodville which is the closest town to the epicentre of the earthquake. No word on aftershocks. Rob

All I know is that Aukland looks lovely with the America's Cup races on the sea. What a pleasure to watch them. There is nothing quite as graceful as wll trimmed sailboats dueling on a cobalt sea. For those in the USA, it is carried on ESPN 2

Hi all I have a new group in Yahoo for anyone who goes there: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/tsunami_warning For those are wondering what tsunamis are, we have a subject in Geo for them but at the moment my brain cannot remember what the number is. Tsunami's, volcanoes and earthquakes all go together which is why I also operate groups for the other two as well. You do not need to be a member of any of them to see what is going on, but you do if you want to participate. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/worldearthquakes http://groups.yahoo.com/group/worldvolcanism You can find all major volcanic and seimic events reported in these groups, and they are richly stocked with geoscientists - Hannah Mirabueno, Raymond Patrick Maximo, Peter Rinkleff, Sandi Harrington - none of whom you know unless you are John, Marcia or Julie (you three have all been in the groups at some stage or another). But I Hannah and Patrick are PHIVOLCS (Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology) staff, while Peter is USGS. I am not sure what Sandi is doing (Marcia, Julie). Hannah is an interesting girl. She happens to have done her MSc on Mayon at Canterbury University under the guidance of Jim Cole, who has been giving my GEOL 113 lecture group lectures on volcanism. One of her colleagues is still at Canterbury. Rob

You can subscribe to email notifications of tsunami alerts. I do! Welcome back,Rob! Congratulations on your new group.

Hi all Looking good down here. We had decent sized floods pouring down the Rakaia in early and mid May with the latter peaking at 1700 cubic metres per second. This was the result of badly needing rain finally showing up and the rain will go some way toward relieving the worst electricity crisis in New Zealand for a decade. New Zealand is largely a nation of dams on rivers when it comes to producing electricity since it is the cleanest and most easily built form of power generation here, so any drought in the South Island high country or central North Island is bad news. The Greens are hopeless. They have no vision whatsoever on how to improve the problem other than power conservation. It has not apparently dawned on them that there are only a limited number of rivers we can really dam, if people still want to go fishing on some of the best braided rivers in the world. Greens being Greens they oppose gas and coal fired stations even though there has been considerable improvement in burning technology now, that the coal or gas being used burns fairly cleanly, and they ignore the fact that 55% of all Greenhouse gas here is actually from sheep and cows farting. New Zealand is windy - you go to Turakirae Heads east of Wellington on a windy day and you will probably be blown into Cook Strait. The people of Wellington are aware of this and the Regional Council is looking to "Okay" a wind farm on the heads to supply Wellington. There is support for a wind farm near Christchurch on Banks Peninsula where most days have wind. Rob

Rob, what about the usage of geothermal energy, such natural occurring hot water? I'm phrasing this badly, this type of energy is used to produce power in Iceland. The reason I ask is because, like Iceland, New Zealand is quite volcanic and it would seem that hot springs would also be found in both places. Also, I remember when my aunt and uncle visited New Zealand and sent us back a postcard with a picture of bubbling mud on it. Apparently there is a very place in New Zealand famous for its hot mud and hot springs. I just can't remember the name of it.

Hi all There is a zone of volcanic, geothermal and seismic activity 50km wide by 240km long that stretches from Mount Ruapehu in the south to White Island in the north. This is called the Taupo Volcanic Zone and it has geysers, mudpools, and hotsprings within it's boundaries. The TVZ also has a nearly full range of volcanoes - domes, calderas, stratovolcanoes implying a similarly near full range of magmas: andesites, dacites and rhyolites are most common, but there may be basalts there too. The most likely place you are thinking of is Rotorua, which is in a caldera volcano and has an extensive system of geothermal plumbing. You can find geysers, mudpools and hotsprings all within the volcano, which is shaped like a circular depression that houses Lake Rotorua. Geothermal energy is already heavily used. I would be reluctant to put further strain on something already supplying 300 megawatts of installed generating capacity, and although the idea is novel it is nothing new - the Italians were the first in the world to recognise geothermal sources can supply electricity, and New Zealand was second. If you take out superheated water faster than you can reinject water to replace it, then the field will run itself down faster. That being said if we stopped relying on the geothermal fields for hot water like Rotorua does, then maybe another 100 megawatts of installed capacity could be possible. But coal is a relatively untapped option, and despite it's reputation for being dirty, there is burning technology available that reduces the sulphur dioxide gas emissions drastically. New Zealand may not have a choice unless we accept nuclear power or stumble on a huge gasfield to replace the Maui fields. Besides most of our Greenhouse gas that the Greens are so anti comes from sheep and cow fart anyway, and we already have an idea of how to reduce it. Rob

Good question, Cheryl. Does the water turn tepid or do the machines it drives stall out? I never though of that. We always have suffficient rain, though we are currently having a mini-drought while Honolulu had heavy flooding and a mini tornado yesterday!

Kia Ora Been a bit since I posted something to do with NZ's dynamic geology. So, my next post is dedicated to one of the more fascinating hazards in New Zealand. During the 2 years that I have been gone, I have had some unique opportunities to understand geological hazards on multiple levels. Some of these experiences I will share here. Rob

Hi all I wrote this for a New Zealand group on Yahoo that I belong to last year. But it is as relevant today as it was when I wrote it. ---- Franz Josef is a beautiful place without any doubt, and has a growing tourist and agricultural industry that relies on the dynamism of the area's natural processes for its economic survival. The tourism industry in the area is dominated by the Franz Josef glacier, which comes down to only 300 metres in elevation and the several lakes which offer good fishing. The township of Franz Josef is located on the true left (north bank)of the Waiho River, which drains from the glacier and is the main service town for the area as well as hosting the burgeoning tourist industry. Agricultural practises include dairy farming on the plain of the Waiho River, below the Waiho Loop (a glacial feature which I will explain later)as well as on the south side of the river. State Highway 6 runs through the town and is the only road connection with the rest of New Zealand. It handles hundreds of tourist buses and cars every day, and crosses the Waiho River over a Bailey bridge before heading to Fox Glacier (heading south)or Whataroa (heading north). You often wake up in the crystal clear autumn and winter mornings, breathe in the West Coast air, and think that you are in heaven - for the duration of your visit that would be a fair comment. You have the mighty Southern Alps rising immediately east of the township, to impressive heights of more than 2500 metres which are covered in dense rainforest below the snow line. You have a glacier descending to an altitude that few glaciers except in polar regions achieve. But there is a problem... or two. For all its natural glory, Franz Josef in a sense of geological hazards could not be sited in a worse place. This is a place so dangerous in the long term, that plans are afoot to try to move most if not all of the town to safer grounds. The very forces that created the glacier, the Southern Alps and the plain on which so much economic activity is now taking place, are also quite capable of levelling the township and making the Franz Josef area uninhabitable at terrifyingly short notice. So, what are these problems and what threat do they pose? On the true right (north bank, looking downstream)of the Waiho River is a short, steep but surprisingly large river catchement which is barely visible amongst the vegetation overlying the area. This is the Callery catchment and it comes out just upstream from the road bridge. This catchment provides most of the runoff that enters the Waiho River during rainfall events. Due to the steepness of the catchment and its narrow gorge, there is very rapid runoff during rain which affects the Waiho River within an hour. North of the Waiho and Callery catchments, cutting around the edge of the Waiho Loop is the Tatare River, which is almost identical to the Callery catchment in terms of hydrology, geology and catchment size. The Tatare River is relatively small in comparison with its southern neighbours, but in catching Franz Josef in the crunch it plays a crucial role. Running the length of the Southern Alps is a large faultline, which marks the boundary of the Pacific and Indo-Australian tectonic plates. Onshore it marks a zone of the boundary where the two plates are locked in place on the surface, while grinding past each other underneath. This is the Alpine Fault, which is much like the American San Andreas Faultline (California)and in many ways behaves just like it. Along the boundary huge stresses are building underneath, which is occasionally released in earthquakes - the last on the Alpine Fault was about 288 years ago in 1717 and the window of time between Alpine Fault earthquakes is about 250-350 years. These earthquakes mostly likely range between magnitude 8.0-8.3, which would be felt all over New Zealand. The Alpine Fault runs straight through Franz Josef township, and dominates the geology of the whole area. Because of the timeframe it operates on, the risk is especially severe since it is not in the human memory and no one has any idea of just how bad things will be in an earthquake. Because it dominates the geology of the FJ area, any earthquake on the faultline can completely alter the behaviour of the Waiho, Callery and Tatare catchments as well as all human activity for months or years to come. These two features, as well as the processes behind them, combine to create a host of problems that can only be avoided by moving away from them. They include hazards not obvious to the uninformed person and those who cannot think on a geological time scale. The temporal and spatial patterns of the geology and meteorology in the area have created a landscape that is as dynamic as it is beautiful. ---- I will continue this later, and examine how they create the numerous hazards that make Franz Josef one of the most dangerous spots in NZ to live in the long term. Rob

Hi all This is the second part to my examination of the geomorphological situation as I understand it in Franz Josef, New Zealand. ---- When the precipitation and the uplift combine, it creates a lot of sediment that builds up quite rapidly. In narrow steep gorges the sediment would not so much build up as it would be carried down into a more gently sloping basin, where build up is possible. This becomes dangerous because the sediment build up can raise river bed levels above any earthworks that man has done to control the river, and the sediment outflow can exceed the relatively minor removal efforts that mankind makes. This is the case at Franz Josef where sediment discharge into the Waiho is raising the riverbed behind the stop banks to the point that the riverbed is now .5m-1m above the ground level on the other side of the stop bank. The sediment discharge comes from a number of sources - glaciation in the Waiho, freeze-thaw action in all catchments, rainfall, rainfall induced landslides, earthquake induced landslides and cross-fan sedimentation from the Tatare or Waiho/Callery catchments. All of these can spike the overall rate of sediment discharge and force the modification of the geomorphological processes in the area. An example of one potential threat was demonstrated graphically in December 1995, when there was a heavy rainfall event which dumped 600mm over just three days. The heavy rain caused many slips as well as a huge buildup of water under the Franz Josef glacier, which had to suddenly give way when the head of water became too great. In a period of only a few hours 500000 cubic metres of sediment was blasted out through a gaping hole in the true right corner of the glacier, which completely changed the direction of the river in the valley and raised the valley floor noticeably. It also knocked out the northern approaches to the Bailey bridge and started eating back into the northern side of the river. This was what geologists and geographers call a glacial-lake outburst flood - short, sharp but very intense. I now list the full litany of dangers in and around Franz Josef in no particular order of importance: 1)The Waiho avulsing to flow into the Tatare - due to sediment rearranging the riverbed the WHOLE river changes course and flows into the Tatare River, with aggrading of the channel moving progressively upstream (the erosive qualities carve out a narrow channel which works its way upstream and eventually carries the whole river). 2)Landslide dambreak in the Callery - very scary because the catchment is sufficiently steep that the whole life cycle of the dam including the break out occurs before anyone even knows it is there, which may cause substantial loss of life. A bad rainstorm that drops a couple hundred millimetres of rain in short order could cause a landslide which plugs the river, which then builds up to dangerous levels. Its proximity to Franz Josef and the direction of the likely breakout would put the bridge, motor camp, hotel accommodation and the lower township in jeopardy. 3)A rainstorm induced flood destroys the stopbank on the southside permitting a breakout onto farmland, through the airfield and threatening the state highway. 4)A rainstorm induced flood causes the stopbank to be destroyed next to the lower Franz Josef township, threatening the town and the State Highway. FUTURE THREATS: The future is dominated by one thing, and one thing only. Sooner or later an Alpine Fault earthquake will strike Franz Josef dead on, with a geological violence not witnessed in New Zealand since 1931. An Alpine Fault earthquake will have massive effects on the sediment supply, and the entire geology and hydrology of the area. For months or years after the Alpine Fault moves, there will be considerably increased sediment discharge from the hundreds if not thousands of slips that will come down in the Southern Alps. They will block rivers only to have them breaking out hours or days later moving substantial volumes of sediment in very short periods of time. Even a smallish rainfall event in this case would not have much trouble moving considerable volumes of sediment. Aftershocks will play their own role bringing down yet more landslides, and - yes, you guessed it - further increasing the pool of sediment waiting to be flushed onto the land that Franz Josef sits on and the Waiho flood plain. Debris avalanches may thunder out of the Callery catchment and glacial outburst floods would be quite conceivable in the Waiho River. The discharge in these events would far exceed anything recorded since humans decided that recording water levels and sedimentation was important, and on top of all of the other hazards these can affect both sides of the Waiho River. ---- My friends. By all means buy property around the West Coast - it is a great place and the people are really cool, but if you are buying near Franz Josef think twice about doing so since there is no short or long term guarantee of survival in the area. Insurance is difficult to obtain for properties in the Franz Josef area. There are no buyers for many of the properties on the plain whose owners have realised the forces that created their slice of heaven can - and probably will - destroy it. Rob

Rob! Welcome back! Please don't go away again for so long. I would love to hear what you have been doing. I have also been watching earthquake and eruptive activity in your area and wondering if you were in the field for such events.] More comments as soon as I read what you posted. I'm currently worried about the Hayward fault since there are at least three people in that area whose lives directly affect my happiness. Lubricate those faults and keep them inching along. It seems the Hayward has locked up and there are definite signs of stress building. Maybe I should just go there and submit to the forces of nature with those I love.

It's great to see you posting again, Rob.

I will be heading back to the Hayward fault in May and in June to "Tornado Alley." Then back to Hayward fault again in August. I step lightly and quickly. And I hope fervently that anyone who flies on the planes on which I fly are wanting to get to the destination alive as I am.

Kia Ora Had heavy light snow last Monday around Christchurch, which did not stop much. However it caused substantial damage further south with more than 50,000 people without power at one stage. Snow piled up in drifts more than half a metre deep and nearly a metre along fence lines. It cut road and telecommunications, which some people have gone for nearly a week without now. Most properties have power back on, which is just as well because a second polar blast is coming ashore and will bring snow down to 300 metres (where it was forecast to fall last time). The army and airforce were deployed earlier this week to ferry in supplies and check up on those places that linesmen had not been able to reconnect. But... It is turning into a race against time in Canterbury with 4000 people still without power after last Mondays snow, and another barrage of snow and hail laden southerlies coming ashore tonight and tomorrow. Many are also still without communications after six days as the snow damaged the phone lines and numerous cellphone towers around the province. Time is the biggest ally and the biggest foe - more time gives the farmers and lines crews more of an opportunity to get things back in running order. Given that this low pressure system has an element of unpredictability about it, time is also the biggest foe as increases the time the low pressure system that is driving the bad weather, to strengthen. Many farmers were caught out on Monday as the low pressure system deepened after 2100 hours the previous day when it had been dark for 3 1/2 hours and too late for many farmers to realistically take action. By the time dawn came on Monday morning many were under nearly 2ft of snow, with drifts piled 3ft on fence lines. Originally many thousands were without power, though through bringing in extra crews from the North Island and working the other crews 16 hour days many were restored by the time of writing this. The army and airforce are also flying in supplies and checking up on rural communities still hampered by heavy snowfall. However, the snow is still more than a foot deep in many places and, with another 15cm or more being forecast at this stage, Monday June 12 looks like being repeated on June 19. Real welfare issues will exist if this expected southerly blast is all that it is thought to be. Rob

I wonder what the outcome of Rob's 2006 problems were. Right now Parts of the UK are under water. It was Europe's turn all winter with flooding in Germany. I guess when people want to live where the rivers are nearby, floods happen. They do here, as well, in Kentucky.

It seems to be the same around the world. Look at Texas.

People in California lose their houses to fire or mudslides about every five years but they thurn around and bould them in the same place.

I can't get into most of your sites. What are you celebrating?

Celebrating? Ah that I am about to be a published author. More on that in a bit.

Tell us more! Also wondering about Rob.

As I said elsewhere, Rob is busily working as a geologist. I really need to check in what capacity.

yeah, what's up with Rob?