At Curio Bay near the southernmost point of New Zealand’’s South Island, you can walk around the remains of a Jurassic fossil forest. Tree stumps are still in their growth position, and fossilised logs criss-cross through the sandstone overlying them. So can we add these pieces of information together – and see what the Curio… Continue reading How Tall were the trees in New Zealand’s Jurassic Fossil Forest at Curio Bay?
Author: Mike Pole
From New Zealand. Traveling the weyward path trying to figure out how the world works. I study fossil plants, past climates, travel, walk, hike, read, take photos, struggle with computer graphics and plant trees.
When Frequent-Flying Becomes Insane-Flying
I loved my Singapore Airlines ‘Elite Gold’ card. Suddenly, International airports transitioned from being places where food and drink were wildly overpriced, to …. free. When I stuffed-up and missed flights, or political rules changed and I couldn’t board an aircraft – instead of costing hundreds of dollars, the issues were quietly and politely taken… Continue reading When Frequent-Flying Becomes Insane-Flying
The Lost Forests of Southland, New Zealand
Forests that have disappeared so completely that you would hardly believe they really existed, have long fascinated me. When I left my home in Alexandra for university in Dunedin, I took with me a facsimile map my mother had given me. It was a mid 19th century view of the Southland plains, the area sweeping… Continue reading The Lost Forests of Southland, New Zealand
New Zealand’s Hawks Crag Breccia – prelude to the drift from Gondwana
The New Zealand road network has some seriously quirky idiosyncrasies – little things we locals take for granted, but can cause some alarm to the ever-increasing number of tourists. There are, for example, hundreds of ‘one lane’ bridges. And about these, I was once asked, in total exasperation by an American “Why don’t you just… Continue reading New Zealand’s Hawks Crag Breccia – prelude to the drift from Gondwana
The Lost Forest of the Ashley River, Canterbury, New Zealand
A gem in the heart of Christchurch is Riccarton Bush (sometimes called Deans Bush). It’s a patch of original kahikatea forest, just a few hundred meters from the Riccarton shopping center (See Molloy,1995, for pretty much all you need to know about the forest). As anyone who flies in or out of Christchurch, or drives that… Continue reading The Lost Forest of the Ashley River, Canterbury, New Zealand
Phyllocladus fossils from the Miocene of New Zealand, and Cretaceous Protophyllocladus
A rare plant fossil in the Miocene Manuherikia Group of New Zealand, is Phyllocladus (the Celery Pine). This is a strange conifer which, instead of leaves, the adult plant has multi-veined flattened branches that are called phylloclades. With these phylloclades, the average person would scarcely believe Phyllocladus is a kind of conifer (very broadly, a pine). But it… Continue reading Phyllocladus fossils from the Miocene of New Zealand, and Cretaceous Protophyllocladus
Aboriginal Paintings of the Kimberley- very old Pleistocene or not so old Holocene?
Many of the real advances in science seem to come from a sudden ‘insight’ ( think Archimedes and “Eureka!”) – and there is often no simple connection between collecting data and that ‘aha!’ moment. The tedious data collection happens, but at some moment, the brain, perhaps quite subconsciously, puts two and two together, and comes up… Continue reading Aboriginal Paintings of the Kimberley- very old Pleistocene or not so old Holocene?
The Biggest Tree Stump in the Curio Bay Jurassic Forest
Back in the late 1980s I had the pleasure of meeting the English scientist David Bellamy. Bellamy was famous at the time as ‘The Botanic Man’, and he was in New Zealand to film for ‘Moa’s Ark’, a TV series and book about the development of New Zealand’s flora and fauna (including the extinct moa birds)… Continue reading The Biggest Tree Stump in the Curio Bay Jurassic Forest
The Amazing Miocene Fossil Leaf Pack of Mata Creek, New Zealand
I was crouched in a long boat somewhere up a rainforest-swathed river in Kalimatan, Borneo, when I saw it – a ‘living’ example of a fossil leaf pack I had once seen in New Zealand. Several years before, I had been exploring down a little stream near St Bathans, New Zealand. I was looking for… Continue reading The Amazing Miocene Fossil Leaf Pack of Mata Creek, New Zealand
St Petersburg – 200 years of Russian Chick Selfies
Women, so I’ve read (and seem to observe), are significantly more likely to take ‘selfies’ than men. It doesn’t seem to matter where I go now, but there are crowds, struggling under the weight of a selfie-stick, with some digital apparatus on the end of it. In a previous incarnation, I was a photographer. This… Continue reading St Petersburg – 200 years of Russian Chick Selfies