NZ Maymester 2019!

May 28th— the long awaited day—the big day—the only day—Conrad’s 19th birthday. Unfortunately for him, the weather was rainy and chilly and mushy on his day; but fortunately for him, he was one year older and could finally kick it with the rest of the big kids. After wishing our first of many happy birthdays to C-rad, we GABEd it up for a day at Wai-o-tapu.  “Wai-o-tapWHO?” I hear you scream. Dear readers I’m so glad you asked. A bubbly geothermal wonderland, Wai-o-tapu was the perfect example of New Zealand’s incredibly efficient magma sourced geothermal system that produces 1200 megawatts of power. For scale, just one megawatt powers 1,000 homes.  If that doesn’t make you say, “wowie!” I don’t know what will. After learning from our resident experts about the thermodynamics behind the system, we had time to romp around the park and watch the mud bubbles rise and pop and boil, resisting the urge to jump into the steamy mess.  We did, however, get to s...

Ashes to ashes, pumice to pumice, for Taupō thou art, and unto Taupō shalt thou return. Guil 5:26 Today, for the last time, we learned about our old friend, the Taupō sequence. Dave, our trusty van, delivered safe and sound to our first outcrop of the day, a wacky series of falls and flows. Guil and Lydia, barely able to restrain us, set us loose. We DEVOURED this outcrop, hand lenses and map books in hand. This was a peculiar outcrop, with strange scouring and elusive layers, but by an astounding group effort, we were able to crack the secrets held within.  Our first clue was the sub sorted, clast supported subtle layering of the bottom unit, indicating it was a series of proximal tephras, falling ash and pumice. Above this is where it got confusing, there were captured clumps of the previous unit and a very wavy contact. With a little help from our instructors, we concluded that it was a slurry of ash and water caused by the increased rainfall after the eruption that sat ...

Oh gosh. Look at us, blogging again!!! We were gonna stop, but the people demanded it so here it goes, the day you’ve all been waiting for is here, the fateful. Tongariro crossing, the line separates the kids from the big kids, the royalty from the plebeians. We set out this fine morn with determination in our hearts and rice krispers in our bellies, the perfect fuel for a day of labor. Then we got to the spot. The Mangatepopo valley trailhead. It was an awesome spot to be sure, but a spot that we would come to despise in the coming days (spoilers).  The geology was pretty cool tho, we stopped at a couple different places in the beginning of the crossing to see some interesting features that were important for our mapping exercise the next day. We first saw an area with the Taupo ignimbrite. Then, we saw a lava flow were top and bottom volcanic breccia as well as a massive rock in the middle.  We then saw a series or lava flows from a different volcano. Lastl...

Once upon a time in desert road flats, after revisiting our pyroclastic flow from the day before, our merry band found columns of pumice in the desert wasteland. Not your normal deposition feature, these tabular columns of larger pumices had blown out their matrix leaving behind elutriation pipes.  Our next adventure was into a pyroclastic fall that had been carved out just enough for us (without our backpacks) to squeeze into.  After our usual heated debate (during which Guil, Lydia, and Brad left us to fight for a consensus on ages and lithics) we left for an even cooler rock! A sparkly, shiny, magical colored rock awaited us. A funky little anomaly, it had us throwing around all guesses to what had caused it. Eventually it struck us - LIGHTNING. Possibly the coolest thing we’ve seen, we were busy giving the rock a photo shoot while being taught that it was a fulgurite with vaporized charcoal and reheated pumice.  After, we learned about the charcoal ...

After exploring the realm of effusive volcanoes at Ruapehu, we ventured out into the unknown world of explosive volcanism. We started our day with a hot mystery to solve: fall or flow? We were taken to 2 outcrops that were textbook perfect examples of each volcanic feature and set upon characterizing them. Two very different pyroclastic depositions were evident--one with big white pumicey clasts with no beds and one tall hill with clear layering and varied grain size-- but there was a steamy debate as to which was flow and which was fall. Left without the guidance of Guil, Lydia, and Brad, the gang was left to our own devices to figure out which was which.  Leaving our mystery up in the air, we headed to our third stop - a hill. Bushwhacking our way up through towering grasses, we traversed our way to a place that looked suspiciously like the second outcrop. After another heated debate amongst the students, we eventually learned that this was, in fact, a combo of pr...

Hello readers! Welcome to our blog today! Very excited to talk to you on this great day. Not five minutes ago (what feels like at least!) we embarked on our journey, one we would never forget. After arriving in the North Island and spending a free day in Wellington we were impatient to see what the geology of this landmass could hold. And boy were we not disappointed. Our first destination: Whakapapa! Home of the southern edge of the North Island's Taupo Volcanic Zone (specifically Ruapehu volcano and the Tongariro volcanic complex) and a great ski resort, we happily rested our tired little heads for a night at The Skotel. After a good sleep, we began our quest...volcanoes.  We started our day in Happy Valley on the slopes of Ruapehu, a "huge ass" volcano. We studied some puzzling cliffs and made some estimates on the number of units present before focusing on a unique cliff face. After analyzing the different types of rock and orientations present, we conclud...

Day 8: The Journey from Westport to Kaikoura We left Westport on another rainy, bleak west-coast morning to travel back to the east coast. After a trip to the local rubbish disposal, we began driving through Lewis Pass. Our first stop was the alpine fault (the boundary between the Australian and Pacific plates) where we saw the 80-foot wall running perpendicular to the fault line. The idea is that when there is movement along the fault, the wall will split, but it is currently still intact because the last known earthquake in that area was in the 1600s.  Then we took a quick detour to see a scenic view that Lydia recommended but sadly was mostly obscured by the rain. Then we stopped at Culverdon and met up with our fellow geologists, Sandy and Josh. We had a quick lunch at a café and then made out way to Rebecca’s farm. Along the way, we saw loads of sheep and free roaming cows. Once at the farm, we took a walk to see a unique feature. It was a fault scarp. This was...

Wow. What a day. Today started for me with a healthy breakfast of rice krispers and toast with peanut butter and honey. But not just normal honey, really good honey. I brushed my teeth after the meal and was then ready for an exciting day in the field! Our first stop was back at the beautiful Cape Foulwind, where we trekked to a lighthouse that overlooked the beach where we’d spent the previous day. After learning that this was, in fact, not supposed to be our first stop we walked back to the van and to another point along the coast. This was also not the area we were looking for, but luckily the rocks proved satisfactory for our purposes. Our subject was a massive massive grey outcrop, and our object was to find out just what this big boy was made of. After a quick seminar in mineral properties based on light, mechanics, and shape we were able to determine that the outcrop was of igneous origin based on the interlocking nature of its grains and that it was composed of feldspar megac...

The scene opens on the Westport Field Station, with sheets of rain bombarding the sturdy cabin. A glimmer of hope, the clouds part, and reveal the beautiful day before us. After a 20 minute drive, we arrived at the appropriately named Cape Foulwind. Before us was a beautiful, but very windy, beach with impressive cliff faces lining its coast, Guil and Lydia gave us our task for the day, which was to create a graph depicting the age and composition of the sediments present at the outcrop —or, a stratigraphic column. With minimal guidance and our reins newly loosened, we set out to do so. Using what we had learned from the last few days, we ran loose into the field to characterize the rock faces that were before us. Aside from our initial tasks of piecing together the puzzle of what the heck formed the slanted rocks in front of us, we were told to watch out for seals that were known to pop up on the beach! In terms of characterizing the rocky outcrops, we needed to determine whic...

The morning of day three we left the quaint city of Christchurch and started our journey to the Wild West coast of New Zealand. The morning started off rather foggy but just as we reached Sheffield, the clouds lifted and glorious meat pies sat awaiting us. We crammed back into the van with happy hearts and full stomachs as we continued our journey to the first geologic stop of the day. After passing what seemed like thousands of sheep and oreo cows, we pulled into the parking lot of Castle Hill. The magnificent boulders seemed to compose a mighty fortress on the grassy hillside and we gazed in awe at this shear geologic masterpiece. After exploring the crevices of castle hill and taking a closer look at the sediments through our hand lenses, we concluded that these rocks were made of limestone as many of them contained pieces of coral or shell material and had been eroded through processes of dissolution since the time they were lithified and uplifted. We also learned to use the word “...

Day 1 in the Field: Learning to Find Ourselves With a beautiful sunny morning, we headed straight to Victoria Park to look at our first outcrop. The first thing we learned was how to find ourselves. Not necessarily spiritually, but geographically – which seemed just as difficult. After discussing true north and magnetic north, we learned how to use our compasses and orient ourselves with landmarks. We then learned how to discover the events that created the outcrop behind the slide at Victoria Park. Three to four hours later (and quite hungry by then) we had determined the history of the outcrop. Sam Hampton, in his fantastic Kiwi accent, then explained the volcanic history behind our location. We also learned about our new friend GABE (Geologists Always Bring Everything) and used it with the surprise afternoon rain-showers testing out our rain gear. On our second stop we headed towards the center of the volcano. From our vantage point, we could see the tail of Quail Island...