New Zealand Geology

Tuataras in Central Otago

Tuatara bones from the Cromwell Gorge, Central Otago, New Zealand.

Bleached moa bones projected out from the steep bank of the nearly dry gully. This was exciting, as there were clearly several bones, and perhaps an entire skeleton waited to be uncovered. However, the layer of bones was under more than a meter of schist gravel and sand. That would require some serious digging, and… Continue reading Tuataras in Central Otago

Bob Carter, Greenhouse Warming, and One Alarmed Palaeontologist

I met Bob Carter after one of my fossil-collecting mates, Duncan McLeod, came across some shell fossils in a ‘marl pit’ on his parents farm property near Winton, southern New Zealand. This was about 1974-1975 when I was at primary school. I traveled from my home in Alexandra to stay with Duncan and collect some… Continue reading Bob Carter, Greenhouse Warming, and One Alarmed Palaeontologist

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

Five Degrees of Global Warming – The Leaf Fossils of Kakahu, New Zealand

Fossil leaf from Early Eocene New Zealand

Sometime in the 1980s my Prof, ‘JDC’ (Doug Campbell of the Otago University), showed me a box of spectacular leaf fossils that had been collected from Kakahu by Graeme Mason while “out rabbiting”. Kakahu is a farming district in the hills, a few kilometres out of Geraldine, in New Zealand. Leaf fossils had been known… Continue reading Five Degrees of Global Warming – The Leaf Fossils of Kakahu, New Zealand

The Giant ‘Lake Manuherikia’ – an extinct lake from the New Zealand Miocene

Bannockburn Formation of the Miocene Manuherikia Group, exposed at Galloway, New Zealand

Alexandra lies at the junction of the Clutha and Manuherikia Rivers. The usual translation of the Maori word ‘Manuherikia’ is that it means something like “cry of a tied bird” and records a scout tying a weka (a bird) to a stake to mark the crossing point of that river (Reed Dictionary of NZ Maori Place… Continue reading The Giant ‘Lake Manuherikia’ – an extinct lake from the New Zealand Miocene

The Highlands Motorsport Park ‘Jurassic Forest Safari’

Growing up in Alexandra it inconceivable that Cromwell might somehow overtake Alex. Alexandra was The Hub. Cromwell was the little place you passed through on the way to the little villages of Queenstown or Wanaka, where you holidayed. But things have happened in Cromwell, and one of the big things is the Highlands Motorsport Park.… Continue reading The Highlands Motorsport Park ‘Jurassic Forest Safari’

Beetroot with your Peanut Butter and Marmite? The basic geological structure of New Zealand

New Zealand must be one of the best places on the planet for geology. We are famous among tourists for having so much variety of landscape in such a small area – you don’t have to drive far to see something totally different. This goes for the geology as well. The basic geological structure became… Continue reading Beetroot with your Peanut Butter and Marmite? The basic geological structure of New Zealand

The Marshall Paraconformity – a 30 year geological debate in New Zealand

Cut back to the late 1970s – I was a schoolboy and had found my way into the Burnside Marl Pit, Dunedin (southern New Zealand) and up to the unit of greensand that is exposed on the hill side at the far end. Greensand is an accumulation of grains of the mineral glauconite. This green… Continue reading The Marshall Paraconformity – a 30 year geological debate in New Zealand

Is New Zealand in the Anthropocene?

Has New Zealand recently entered an entirely new period of time? You may have caught up with the proposal that the world is now in a new era of time – the Anthropocene. Geologists have previously told us that we lived in the period called the Holocene. This is generally agreed to have begun 11,700… Continue reading Is New Zealand in the Anthropocene?