Oamaru

I loaded up with a group of third year (final year) students, 2 profs (Chris, and Catherine)  and 3 other TA’s (Nick, Hamish, and Sean) for the 6 hour drive to the Oamaru area.  We were looking at the Tertiary seds and volcanics in the area.   The seds were of course mildly interesting.  There were some cool unconformities with Karst formation and subsequent deposition of a unit, followed by another unconformity such that the secondary greensand was only found in the filled Karst of the first limestone.  That being said I quickly grew board of poorly consolidated sands, gravels, and limestones.   It should be mentioned that NZ geologists use limestone in a very different context than American geologists.   They are much more forgiving of  other muds incorporated into the limestone.  Mostly because they are looking at cold-water limestones, which are not nearly as pure as the warm water limestones, I’m used to seeing in the western US.    What the seds lacked the volcanics made up for in spades!  The volcanics are the Kakanui mineral breccias.  They are a series of subaqueous volcanic eruptions.  What makes them awesome is the mineralogy and some of the xenoliths that are brought up from depth.  The breccia includes huge amphiboles (cms) and rounded plagioclase, plus some garnets;  and then xenoliths of peridotites (lhezolite to be exact), granulites, eclogites, and tertiary seds  this is all wrapped up in a silica undersaturated basalt.  For those who are not geologists, basically this basalt brought up really deep metamorphic rocks and potentially portions of the lower crust/upper mantle.   Needless to say it confused the devil out of myself and everyone else there.    Other highlights of the trip involve a prank battle with a giant flipper of kelp (which may have ended up in my bed, though thankfully not my food) and apple picking (I now have heaps and heaps of apples).    Bunch of photo’s below.

Kakanui North

The mineral breccia

Pillow basalts intruding into a carbonate mud

Requisite picture of the Moraki boulder

The cool karst unconformity

The rock heart

One thing I've missed with my project... Smashing rocks.

What follows are some of the inclusions in the mineral breccia

Easterish time

So this is a backlog as well.    I arrived back from Ngatamariki just in time for Easter weekend.   Emily and I had planned to go on a tramp up in Lewis pass, but the weather for the weekend showed about 1 nice day (after that it went to torrential downpour).    Christchurch was supposed to be about the nicest place around.  As such we stuck around, went for a day hike, wandered some of the beaches near CHCH (something I don’t really do all that often), and generally ate good food.    Our hike was most of the way up cloudy peak, which was not cloudy; it was very windy!  We’re talking about 65-70 km gusts.  But on the plus side it was beautiful.  

Looking to Arthur's pass

Towards the sea, notice the wind

More of the Cragieburns

The next week Emily shipped out for some Grand adventures (literally, the grand canyon) and I got back to work parsing out the mess of data I had collected up north.   I spent the next weekend getting caught up with my normal chaos and killing trees!  Pines are a big time problem in New Zealand.   They were introduced as a timber crop (which is still a huge industry here today), but they out compete the native bush.   I volunteered for a tree-killing day up in the castle hill area.   It snowed in the high country the day before, which made the day cool and beautiful!   3 days later I’m headed to Oamaru to help out with a geology field trip.

Up towards the Gap

Flock Hill

The clean up area, note the dead pines everywhere

Looking towards Castle Hill

Ngatamariki Fieldwork

 I drafted this just after I got back from the field with the thought of brushing it up and posting it.   As it turns out I got lazy/forgetful.   I include it as a record of that fieldwork (date of occurrence Mar 18-29):

I’ve spent the last two weeks doing the first bit of fieldwork with another master’s student, Cam Asher.   I went to Ngatamariki geothermal field to do a soil gas survey and to collect gas samples for isotopic analysis.  He’s working on nitrogen isotopic signatures in lichen—hopefully associated with thermal activity. Ngatamariki is approximately 17 km north of Taupo.   It’s a site of a nearly blind geothermal system (there are only 3 areas of geothermal activity and it’s fairly minimal at that), but there is water well over 100° C at depth.   Mighty River Power Company is just starting to put in a geothermal power plant, so it seemed like a good time to grab baseline flux before the plant goes on-line.

            What Ngatamariki also has is Himalayan Blackberry.   The Brits (and Scotts in the case of gorse) found a land with literally no prickly plants (not true as it turns out there’s matagori and bush lawyer) and decided in their infinite wisdom that the situation should change.  As such I spent heaps of time fighting through up to chest high blackberry (BAD) in addition to the native-ish bush and pine forest (tree ferns and such.  Better, though you still really couldn’t see).   The other chunk of my survey was in the middle of a recently logged field.   The slash had been removed so what was left was a dusty plain with no shade.  Needless to say this wasn’t the most enjoyable field site ever.  The data doesn’t look super promising (not really site nor sound of CH₄, which is what I was looking for) but hopefully something will show up in the isotope data.  That being said the springs were pretty (when you found them) and the hydrothermal eruption crater was pretty cool (photos below).    It was a pretty steep learning curve and I still have some things to sort out with my equipment, but it’s off to CHCH for Easter and a break, which I should spend in the mountains!   The rest can wait for just a bit.

My slash field

The hydrothermal eruption crater

Cool algae at the outlet to the crater

One of the springs hidden in the bush

Hindsight being what it is, the data has some true potential.   That being said I don’t view the bush bashing as super pleasant—that’ll take a touch more time.

Mt. Cook

           

All right these are some backlogged posts.  I’m bad at keeping this thing current.  But I have been effectively told off, so there’ll be a flood of post for a bit.  I’ll try to make more frequent/regular updates.   This short first one details events from the week of March 11:

 It’s a rather rare day that Haya Jamali shows up in New Zealand (actually it would probably be quite frequent if Emily was sticking around; both Whitman kids for those who don’t know) as such we honored the occasion by heading down to Mt. Cook.   It was a short trip (I was skipping out on some work I probably should have been doing) and photos of the area really better describe the place then I can.   Suffice it to say that I’m stoked to go back there in the spring to climb.   It reminded me of the North Cascades with sketchier rock and bigger glaciers.   It was a good break from preparing for my upcoming fieldwork.   As always great to see people from home!  After the trip was the usual hanging around CHCH and making and eating good food before I headed up for round 1 of sampling.

The evening drive in.

The morning wake up view.

Emily and Haya on the start of the Hooker Valley.

Cook.

The quintessential Mt. Cook view from Lake Pukaki

Return to CHCH

The first half of this post was sketched up a while ago, as such there is a pretty sudden transition of voice.  Deal with it (I’m trying to get caught up here)

It’s been surprisingly action packed since I’ve returned to CHCH.  Saturday was entirely filled with flat searches, which ended up successful!  I am renting a sleepout (a pretty standard NZ tradition, essentially a small room with bath behind a main house), which is pretty near to uni (university, no I’m not just lazy it’s the phrasing out here).   As Tim owned a hotel, he has tons of furniture and is being super generous and helping me flesh out an otherwise unfurnished apartment.    I’m also quite stoked with my flatmates 1 student and two professionals- Gina (Msc geo), Scott (IT god), Gareth (EQC and politician for the ACT party). 

Sunday was devoted to my second adventure, as I don’t have a car, and still haven’t met that many people (and Emily is hanging out with her mom in the south, the bum) I was not able to get up into the southern alps; instead I decided to bike around the port hills.  It’s kind of hard to plan bike rides as many roads in the hills are closed due to the earthquake, but the photo’s can adequately describe why I’m stoked the hills are super near to CHCH.  One thing to mention about the hills: I love the views, solitude, and general wildness of the area, but I really dislike biking over cattle guards.   It’s also interesting that the area was once covered by native bush and is only grassland due to the grazing of sheep and cattle in the area.  

It’s been a while since my first adventures up into the port hills.   Since then I’ve done a ton of Uni work.  My project is pretty much on the up and up.   I’m focusing in on methane (assuming Fulbright support) in a variety of fields.   It should be pretty fun.  I’m headed up to Taupo for the first round of fieldwork on March 18^th!   Before that I’m just taking care of details on the uni front.

I’ve spent a fair bit of time exploring the place that I live.   This has included a couple of excellent bike rides (CHCH is so good for it), and a fair bit of climbing in the port hills.   It’s all on basalt outcrops, but it makes Wallula gap pretty jealous.  On the downside on one of my trips out there my climbing partner got her hand twisted up in a draw and broke her finger in two places.   Time three in hospital since arriving in NZ.  She’s on the mend, but out of climbing for a couple of months.  

I haven’t been exploring too far afield thus far due to lack of car and people who are stoked on driving me around.  BUT that all has changed!  I has van!  Turns out the ever-excellent Tim had an old beater van hanging around (87 Nissan largo).  I was able to get it up and running.  Tim is being super generous and is letting me use it/extended renting it for the time I’ll be here.    I’m pretty stoked, but it was just set up today and I have a touch of work before it’s truly road trip worthy (needs a bed built into the back)

My limited driving has actually not been that bad.  I think it’s mostly because I have spent a good chunk of time biking around, so I’m very used to the left side of the road.  The challenging bits are looking into the mirror and trying to shift with a drive train that comes off the steering wheel… it’s hard! 

For the first venture in van, which has been christened Betsy Ross (I’ve got to spread the American culture eh?) I grabbed another American exchange student and headed out to Mount Oxford.  An hour outside of CHCH the trail head starts at 349 m and the peak tops out at 1364m.  It’s a steep climb and I’m kind of ashamed how sore I have been afterwards.  It was super drizzly, but a really enjoyable day nonetheless.    

I’m all caught up on the blog now and I’ll try to increase the frequency of posts, but no promises (see the disclaimer).

Rotorua

I flew into Rotorua late-ish and spent the first night in a backpacker and felt like many people seem to be touring New Zealand without really seeing the place.  Everyone was jumping from one activity to the next, rafting, zorbing, jet boating, etc. It seemed as though they had a list of things to see and do; each had to be ticked off, but the worth came from the number of things rather than the actual activity.  That being said I waste countless hours going up and down snowy slopes, so what do I know. 

A good chunk of the next day was spent wandering around Rotorua looking at the hot springs in the area.  For those who don’t know Rotorua sits in the middle of the conveniently named Rotorua caldera and falls squarely in the middle of the Taupo Volcanic Zone (my general study area).   Essentially it’s in the middle of a volcano of similar nature to Yellowstone.   There’s a lot of hot water just under the surface as is evident by the steam coming out of the ground or storm drains.  Very few people are allowed to directly use this water.  There used to be a bunch of direct use, but it caused a significant draw down of features and boreholes were strictly enforced.

The end of the day found me hopping into a van full of undergraduate geology students and joining their field camp for the next several days.  I was sudo-TAing, mapping, and generally getting the lay of the land.  Apparently I ran into the most relaxed week of the trip, because there was a fair bit of swimming (we were mapping next to Blue Spring, which produces such optically clear water that the river actually appears blue; though it’s kind of hard to see in pictures and I'm too lazy to photoshop it) 

    

The last day with them we rafted Kaituna (famous for it’s 7m drop), mapped some hot springs,  and jumped off of a 7-8m bridge.  All that went swimmingly, but getting out of the water I somehow encountered a bit of metal that left a 1 cm long and ¼ cm deep gash on my knee.  I should have got stitches, but there wasn’t enough time before I needed to catch a bus to Wellington for Fulbright orientation.  Instead I cleaned it out to the best of my ability and steri-stripped it up (thanks WFR—Wellington hospital decided that I had done a good enough job that they’d rather not mess with it, though I did get a tetanus shot for my troubles.  Healing wonderfully).

Fulbright orientation was wonderful.  It provided a crash course to NZ history, botany, zoology, and cultural studies.   It’s really hard to sum up the week in a few words, but suffice it to say that I know much more about NZ than any other country (except of course the US).   One event of prominence was a stay at a marea, which is the Maori meeting hall.   Accompanying it was a history and cultural teachings of the Maori to the present.     While I cannot encapsulate a people in a few words, one thing that I really enjoyed was the structure of the marea the main beam represents the backbone and the rafters the ribs of a person.  It’s a really cool idea and I really enjoyed it. 

Waitangi day fell in the middle of the week and I spent it with a host family north of Wellington.  We (the couple, Leigh and Dale, Leigh’s parents, and their 5 yr and 7 mo old children) went walking around a preserve dedicated to the native flora and fauna of NZ.  I forgot my camera, but it was a great day.   I must say that I have only wonderful things to say about every Fulbrighter I’ve run into and I can only hope that someday I can open up my (non-existent) house to a kiwi coming to the states.  From orientation I was supposed to head into the field again, but there were some complications with the Phd student I was going to be following around, so instead I headed back to CHCH.

Packing/Arrival

Disclaimer:   I generally dislike the idea of a blog; it seems a touch voyeuristic and up until now unnecessary.  However I have always wanted to keep a record of my Fulbright and now that I’m far enough away from home to make constant contact difficult.  The simplest solution, it seems, is to make that record pseudo-public.  Enough said.

Anyone who wandered by my house in the week or so before I left knew how much I was stressing on packing for this.   I didn’t want to be held back from adventures by the lack of gear, but I also really didn’t want to show up with a major shitload of stuff.   In the end I whittled it down into 3 checked bags (so 150 lbs, just a touch more than my body weight and counting a bike).  Not bad considering that I could be down here for up to 4 years (rationalizing...).   

The trip was about as uneventful as can be expected with a really neat moonset somewhere over the pacific.   The downside is that TSA deciding that my pack didn’t really need two shoulder straps, but I was able to stitch it back together.  When I arrived in Christchurch (CHCH) I was met by a previous Fulbrighter, Tim, who had graciously offered to let me stay at his house while I got settled.    Tim is a non-conventional businessman (meaning that we get along wonderfully), who used to own The Hotel Off the Square before it was red-zoned post earthquake. 

I’m very impressed with CHCH.  It is a very bikable community and if I didn’t have grand plans to head into the mountains every so often I think that you could easily handle it without a car.   Tim showed me around some of the more shook up neighborhoods, which made me think a great deal about home ownership and general placement of homes.

Speaking of homes most of my week was devoted to finding one and trying to enroll in the university, both of which tasks I failed at miserably, so the hunt will go on once I get back to CHCH.    The housing market is really hard with so many people displaced by the earthquake.   Quite frequently a landlord will get 8-10 responses on the first day he posts the property.  It could be tricky, but I’m sure I’ll find someplace to live in time.

I took a break from house searching Saturday night and Sunday to spend some time with the lovely Emily Johnson (Whitman grad for anyone reading who doesn’t know her)  She’s in NZ on an agricultural internship and is placed, luckily, in Kaiapoi about 20 km north of CHCH.   We met up with some of her family friends and went to a standup/bingo feature of the buskers festival.  It was preformed in the Palette Pavilion, which is a really cool open air venue constructed entirely by volunteer efforts and made of wooden pallets painted blue.  It's on the site of one of a torn down building.   It was built to promote more music and arts performances and is just one example of the quirky and cool ideas that are springing up in the recovery. 

Sunday we went up to castle hill, at which the photo speaks for itself, and ended the day walking up the cave stream.  

 The name explains that one--a cave with a stream inside it.   You can hike from one entrance to the other and the water is quite warm from the time it spent on the sun-baked plain.  The day had its mishaps (I lost my glasses in the rushing stream water, props to Emily for not saying ‘I told you so.’)  From there I headed off to Rotorua to join with a group of American exchange students finishing up their field camp.   (more to come as I write it, playing catch up)