NZ Maymester 2019!

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...

We made it! We'll galavant and geologize across New Zealand all month, with periodic blog posts to keep you entertained. Stay tuned for the adventures of Beth, Conrad, Ellie, Emma, John, Loren, Margaret, me, and Guil! And fingers crossed that I can keep up!! Lydia