March 28, 2017

What do we do at conferences?

Hard work, sort of: Puerto Varas

Conferences are important in geology as a way to share your research with others in your field, as well as a way of networking. Especially in a super international field like volcanology, it’s a really good opportunity to meet others whose names you recognize from papers you’ve read/cited, old friends from the other side of the world, and potential future collaborators.

As I mentioned, volcanologists usually find a way to have their conferences in volcano-y places, and Puerto Varas fits the bill. It’s fairly close to two volcanoes, Calbuco and Osorno, and was even impacted by the 2015 eruption of Calbuco. Puerto Varas is considered the “German” town in Chile, as such is has a lot of European influence in the culture. It’s also a bit touristy, so it felt a little less “Chilean” than the smaller towns I’d been in to this point.

Puerto Varas waterfront along Lago Llanquihue
There’s the two volcanoes! Osorno is the perfectly conical one on the left, Calbuco is the more lively looking one on the right.
Getting excited for conference time.
So many friendly “stray” dogs. Mostly very docile, friendly, and fairly well cared for.
Lots of nice sunsets with the volcanoes in the distance.
A local artisan market. Wool, wool, and more wool!
Another empanada, along with some “mote con huesillo”, a non-alcoholic sweet drink with a dried peach and wheat in it.
Pichangas! I’d say it’s kind of like Chilean nachos.

A geologic conference usually involves lots of talks and posters. You get a big program at the beginning, and you decide which ones interest you the most or are relevant to your research. It also means if there’s people you want to meet, you can get an idea of where they might be during the conference. I had a poster during the second half of the conference, which meant the rest of the time I was free to attend as many useful talks and visit as many interesting posters as I could.

This conference had three streams of talks going at once, usually split into different categories ranging between physical volcanology (chemistry, physics, fieldwork, etc.) and volcano communications/social science, so you could hop around as things went to get a good mix of all the subjects you wanted to learn about. The poster sessions also had a mix of all the categories so you could talk to people from all parts of the volcanology community.

Many of you know that I like making films about my and others’ research. I’m not alone! I was really excited that a couple of volcanologists from universities in England were hosting a movie session one evening (the VolcanOscars!), showing self-made geology movies from conference attendees. I submitted my Vanuatu movie about Ben’s research on Yasur, and it was pretty surreal to see it up on the big screen with a room of 100 or so people ooohing at the explosions.

A big conference needs big projector screens. Sophia is happy to be here.
Registration desk, where you get your program and other goodies.
An example of one of my friends from the UK, Lara, giving a talk.
Showing my movie at the Volcanoscars session, super exciting for me!
The instantaneous translators were amazing, it meant that everyone could participate regardless of whether a session was in English or Spanish. Felt like being at the UN!
My poster! Full of pretty photos and figures.
The opening and closing ceremonies has a number of cultural performances.

As part of the conference, we had a field and cultural trip in the middle. Since so much of Cities on Volcanoes is about understanding the relationship between people and volcanoes, we visited a town, Río Blanco, that had been affected by lahars (volcanic mudflows) from the 2015 eruption of Volcán Calbuco in order to see the effects firsthand and talk to some of the townspeople.

We were able to see the lahar path and some affected buildings, and we were treated to a presentation by some of the local officials on what it was like living through the eruption. They told us what their experience was, people’s reaction, the government’s response, and how they feel about the possibility of a future eruption. All in Spanish, of course, but one of the conference organizers helped to translate as we went.

A church in Río Blanco that just narrowly escaped the lahar (with Calbuco in the background).
Climbing down into the lahar channel.
A waterfall upriver along the lahar path.
A fishery building that was destroyed by the lahar.
Meeting with the locals to hear about their eruption experience.
Performance centre in Frutillar where we got to see a concert after the show.
We were generously taken to a concert of Inti Illimani, a pretty famous Chilean folk band.

After the conference: Osorno and a bit more

Once the conference had finished, I had a couple days left in Puerto Varas before the next part of my trip. To take advantage of that time, Sophia, a fellow Auckland PhD who I was staying with, and I booked a tour to Osorno volcano. In the end, we got driven there and shown around by two Chilean guys, a bit surprisingly, all in Spanish, meaning after a week of mostly English at the conference I got to hablar español un poco mas!

Sophia with our friendly neighborhood stray dog.
It came to greet us every time we got back to our lodging!
Volcán Osorno. It’s such a perfect cone because none of the recent eruptions have come out of the top, rather always out of a side vent.
Looking across Lago Llanquihue to Calbuco volcano to the south.
Osorno is a skifield in the winter.
One of the small side eruption craters.
A red scoria crater with Calbuco and the lake behind.
Me wearing my conference shirt, with Osorno on it, standing in front of Osorno

With my time in Chile ending, I explored PV for another day, sent some postcards, enjoyed some more Chilean food, and then, since I was in the same hemisphere, I caught a flight back to Santiago so I could fly back to the US for a quick trip home.

Monte Calvario, a little park in PV with good views of the volcano. In this case, looking at Osorno was literally a religious experience!
Also had views of Calbuco, and PV’s famous church.
So many volcanoes to see out the window on the plane flight back to Santiago!

American montage

Bagels! As in good ones, not bagel-shaped bread.
Model trains in Grand Central Terminal in NYC
The New York Public Library.
Christmas market in Bryant Park.
Big highways with big cars!
Big cities with bright lights!

A few more hours in Chile: Santiago

After seeing family and doing a fun things, I had a much-delayed, fairly hellish trip back to New Zealand via Chile. The one bright spot was a long-enough layover in Santiago that gave me a chance to go into the city for a little more sightseeing. I had one last ceviche and took a funicular to the top of San Cristobal Hill.

Mmmm, ceviche!
Some little stalls in the park.
View of Santiago from the top of San Cristobal Hill.
Gotta have some religious statues.
Reminded me of my days surreptitiously photographing the inside of churches in Italy.
Santiago is surrounded by awesome mountains too.
There were many of these colorfully-painted crosses.

And from there, I finally made it back to Auckland, where I could enjoy my bottle of Chilean pisco in peace.

March 27, 2017

What do volcanolgists do on vacation?

As I sit in a lab in Australia waiting for my samples to make it through quarantine, maybe it’s a good time to continue my hopeless attempts to catch up on my horribly neglected blog. So, this time…CHILE!

Part of academia is going to conferences to share your research with other scientists in your field. As volcanologists, we are pretty good at making sure those conferences also often happen to be in places with awesome volcanoes. That way we can learn about local interesting geology in addition to presenting our work. I was lucky enough to attend the Cities on Volcanoes 9 conference in Puerto Varas, Chile, last November. It’s a conference all about volcanoes and the people who live near them (hence the name), hazard mitigation, communication, and more.

I was able to head to Chile a week before the conference to have a bit of a travel vacation with my workmate Mary Anne. What did I do on this vacation? Well…there’s a lot of nice scenery in Chile, and much of it includes tall pointy mountains that hot rocks come out of…and I may have spent most of my time looking at that.

But first, Santiago!

On our way to the Región de los Lagos, the part of the country where the conference was, we had a one day stop in Chile’s capital, Santiago. Enough time to take a look around, check out some nice parks and markets, and have some great food.

The city was super smoggy. Wonder if that contributed to the amazing sunset.
Pisco sours, one of Chile’s national cocktails
Some interesting modern sculpture. I wasn’t thaaat hot!
I still like church architecture. This one is Iglesia San Francisco de Borja.
Cerro San Lucia, a nice park on a hill with a hermitage on top and several gardens.
View over Santiago from up on the cerro.
The hermitage
Plaza de las Armas, the main square.

 

Onwards to volcanoes: Hornopirén

The next day Mary Anne and I flew down to Puerto Montt, the city at the northernmost end of Patagonia, and rented a car so we could drive to some of the more out-of-the-way areas to the south. We were taking the Carretera Austral, the road that goes from the end of the Pan-American Highway as far south in Chile as you can go. It’s very much still a work in progress. Much of it is unpaved, and there are several ferry crossings where the road comes to an end.

Our first stop was in Hornopirén, a small town near a national park and a few volcanoes. We did our first ferry crossing and found our way to a nice cabaña with fireplace–lucky since it spent the next day raining so hard we could barely do anything!

Our first ferry crossing in Caleta la Arena
Chilean civil defense does a good job with their public awareness signage regarding natural hazards
One of our best dinners of the whole trip (and definitely the cheapest!). Empanadas are delicious!
Funny warning sign from the first ferry.
Our cozy lodging in Hornopirén, nice place to read on a torrentially rainy day.
Church in the town centre.
Volcán Hornopirén finally showing itself at the end of the storm.
Boat graveyard

We were supposed to head on fairly quickly to our next location, but a ferry scheduling issue meant we had to stay an extra day. The silver lining was that it meant we had time to do the things we were rained out of the first day. We had a great hike to Lago Cabrera, the site of Chile’s biggest volcanic death toll. In the 1950s there was a rockfall from Yate volcano that fell into the lake, which caused a tidal wave destroying a settlement on the other side, killing 26 people.

On our hike we passed a small mill for Alerce trees, a local type of tree with beautiful red wood.
The monument to the Lago Cabrera disaster.
Just can’t help ourselves! Checking out the pyroclastic deposits from Hornopirén and Yate.
Looking across the lake to Yate, the bigger one.
Hornopirén, the pointier of the two.
Cool local flowers…interesting, there’s a lot in common between this region of Chile and New Zealand. They have similar latitudes.
More views across the lake as the weather changed.
We also got some great views of the Andean massif…
…and got to watch a Chile/Uruguay football match with some locals.

Onward to…more volcanoes?: Parque Pumalín

Once we finally sorted our ferry, we headed off further south. First a 3 hour trip, a short driving break, and then another short ferry ride to get to Parque Pumalín, a privately maintained conservation area with beautiful views and–you guessed it–a few more volcanoes!

A big trip with lots of cars requires a BIG ferry!
All the cars only slightly dampen the view…better look off a different side of the boat!
Stunning views along the ferry ride.
Waterfalls too!
Waiting on the shore, eating lunch, as our second ferry comes to get us.

The park is home to Chaitén volcano, which had a violent and destructive 2008 eruption, severely affecting the nearby town of the same name. As we drove through the park to the town where we were staying it was easy to see the effects of that eruption.

Look at all those dead trees. They were killed instantly by the pyroclastic flows from the eruption.
But it is impressive to see how quickly the lower vegetation has grown back in a short time.
That one is Cerro Corcovado, one of the most stunning volcanoes I’ve seen, even from this distance.
Hard to see the perfect pointiness and the craggy relief in the photo, but it was a view we could stare at endlessly from across Chaitén harbor.
Logo of the park.

Our host gave us some recommendations for hikes the next day. Of course we were going to climb a volcano (duh…) but we had more time than that. We used to visit some waterfalls and more alerce trees. Our first hike was the Cascadas Escondidas trail, or the “hidden waterfalls”.

Up and down a lot of very natural-looking ladders.
The “hidden waterfalls”
I loved the ladders.
A waterfall with a rainbow right to the bottom!
View over Lago Río Negro
The lahar path, where the products of the 2008 eruption entered a river and wiped out everything on the way down to the lake.
Lago Río Blanco
Not a bad spot for lunch.
If you thought we wouldn’t take time to look at the amazing rocks…you’d be sadly mistaken.
Some awesome banded obsidian. With proper scale, of course!

But of course the start of the show was Chaitén volcano. We took a few hour hike up to the top in the afternoon and got great views of the still smoking dome.

See the steam rising from the volcano?
More views of the dead trees.
Made it to the crater rim to look at the dome!
More good evacuation signs.
This house is buried up to the second story by mudflows from the eruption…much of Chaitén village is still not recovered from the eruption.

Back to work!: return to Puerto Varas

Our pre-conference week was coming to an end, so we hopped on a 9-hour ferry back up to where we started. I got to work on my Spanish quite a bit more by watching some extremely family-inappropriate pirated movies that were being shown and had a chance to get a different view of some of the places we’ve been.

Upon getting back, we had one more day with the car, so we took a trip to the the Saltos de Petrohué, a series of rapids and waterfalls near still more volcanoes!

Looking at Calbuco and Osorno volcanoes from the ferry…we’ll get to those later.
Calbuco volcano behind the port in Puerto Montt.
Saltas de Petrohué
I know it’s a warning about forest fires…but it’s still a bit ridiculous.
Pretty yellow wildflowers…
…more waterfalls…
…and really cool color contrast when you see them all together!
Looking east from the tiny town of Petrohué at still more volcanoes, including Cerro Tronador (obscured by clouds).

Another thing that was fun about the trip to this point was the language. While I studied Spanish all through high school and have practiced it beyond that, I’ve never had the chance to use it in a practical setting before. In the places we went, most people spoke no English, so I had to stretch my Spanish knowledge to its limit, and it was super fun. I felt like I was improving as the trip progressed, and really happy with how well I did.

Halfway point in the trip is a good point for a break! I promise I will finish the second half soon! You believe me, don’t you?

January 9, 2017

Boom! Boom! Explosions!

Mission: See a Real Volcanic Eruption

Country: Vanuatu

Island: Tanna

Volcano: Yasur

Last August, I was presented with a can’t-miss opportunity. My officemate, Ben, who shares a supervisor with me, has an awesome PhD project working in Vanuatu. As the main part of his project, he planned to live at the base of the volcano, collecting a whole series of measurements, for three months. This includes stuff like seismic (earthquake) data, thermal (infrared) images of eruptions, gas measurements, and physical observations. For details on the project, watch the video above.

As you might expect, a project with this many facets is too big for one person to do alone. Ben (along with his supervisors) planned the project and held the responsibility of keeping things up and running the whole time, but he needed some help setting things up at the beginning and doing the work all along. To do this, my supervisor sent several of us in the department out to help over the course of the trip. I was offered the chance to go at the very start and help things set up.

Did I mention Yasur is basically the most consistently active volcano in the world? It’s been erupting more or less constantly for over 1000 years. As a volcanologist who’d never seen a live eruption before, do you think I could pass that up? Not a chance!

We spent the first couple of days in Port Vila, Vanuatu’s capital on the island of Efate (Vanuatu is made up of around 80 islands). It has about 40,000 people, and, while maybe not as “modern” as you’d get in New Zealand, it’s as urban as you’re going to get in Vanuatu (and many things we had access to there would’ve been the height of luxury during the fieldwork). We had to sort the logistics of getting all of Ben’s scientific equipment from there over to Tanna, one of the outer islands where Yasur volcano is located. Luckily, in between running back and forth between shipping agencies, we also had a bit of time to explore.

Bislama is pretty awesome. Read it out loud. You understand it, don’t you?
Tropical flowers.
A little bit of luxury to make up for hard times to come.
The harbor in Port Vila
Important shipping logistics to take care of.
The best water in Vanuatu. See, makes sense!
The market, apparently open 24/7.
Stuff and stuff and stuff and more stuff.
View of Port Vila centre from across the harbor.
The national museum.
Sandroing, a type of kustom art. We got lots of demonstrations from a friendly museum volunteer.

I also got my first taste of Bislama, the local language. Vanuatu has over 100 different indigenous languages, the most per capita of any country in the world. There’s a decent amount of English and French spoken (they are both official languages along with Bislama) in addition to the indigenous ones, but Bislama is the one that brings everyone together. It’s a creole of French and English, with a bit of grammar and vocabulary from each. While confusing at first, it actually makes a lot of sense when you read the sentences out loud, and it’s a lot of fun to try to understand.

From Vila, we took a little Twin Otter plane (you could look right into the cockpit) over to Tanna to start our real work.

“Please look after the plane, it belongs to you all. If someone breaks something on the plan they will answer to God.”
Watching the pilots in action.
Compare the English and the Bislama, it’s fun!
First views of Tanna.
Ben disembarking out little plane.
Map of Tanna island.

The volcano is in the southeastern part of the island, so we took a slow pickup truck ride over there from the airport (on the west coast near Lenakel, the largest town on the island…which is so small I can’t even find a population estimate on the internet). To get a good start, we quickly headed up the volcano that evening to get a first view of the fireworks…unfortunately, it took a bit to figure out how to take good pictures of the explosions, so you’ll just have to be patient (or scroll down if you can’t wait!). In the meantime we settled into our lodging at Jungle Oasis Bungalows.

It’s a nice place, but pretty basic. Don’t come out here expecting modern amenities. No hot water, electricity on generator power for just a few hours every evening, pretty simple food, lots of pretty large insects. For a week and a half, it made the fieldwork that much more involved, and even a bit fun. For three months? Let’s just say I’m not jealous of Ben on that front. Still, it was great to have real beds and a (mostly) stable roof over our heads, and Kelson, the owner, is super ambitious and entrepreneurial, so improvements are constantly being made–he apparently built a restaurant in the couple months after I left, and I wouldn’t be surprised to find things completely different if I ever go out there again!

Sitting around the kitchen table in our living room, also where we did most of our evening work.
The equipment room–storage, charging station, etc.
The assistant’s room, where I stayed.
Our house from the outside, complete with volcanoboards!
The regional flag for the area we were staying in, personally designed by Kelson, owner of Jungle Oasis and self-styled regional tourism manager.
Critters!
The most adorable and tiniest cat ever, our pet during our stay. The locals weren’t interested in naming it…hence, meet Microkitty. That’s what happens when you give too much power to geologists.
It’s just so fucking adorable! 🙂
The amazing treehouse! We didn’t stay here, but we were allowed to come out here to hang out and watch the volcano at night.

But you want science and volcanoes, don’t you? So did we! We started right into it the next day, hiking all around the volcano to set up some equipment and scope out sites for other bits.

Setting out across the ash plain. And there’s Yasur in the background.
Setting up the FLYSPEC sensor to measure gas particles in the air. Everything is stored in these plastic briefcases to protect it from the constant rain of volcanic ash and lapilli (the name for slightly bigger pieces of ash).
Examples of ash and lapilli that fall from the volcano every day. Ash is basically just lava that explodes into tiny bits coming out of the volcano and rains down wherever the wind is blowing.
Looking at lake sediments that show thousands of years of volcanic history.
Oh. Yeah.
More work in the ancient drained lake.
Scoping out locations for seismic sensors.
Back and forth and all around.
Just one example of the infinite number of “bombs” or “ballistics” that are chucked out of the volcano every day. This one is pretty small!

And then we got to the top and got to see the fun explosions! Yaaaaay!

BOOOM!
All those black specks are blobs of lava!
Ben testing out the thermal camera.
Now THAT is a bomb. Shows what Yasur is capable of at its most active.

We took advantage of the presence of Shane and Jen, Ben’s supervisors at University of Auckland, to set up all our equipment over the next few days. That involved a trip to grab all our gear that had come over on a ferry and trekking more around the volcano to get the best spots for everything. It also involved a shovel, lots and lots of duct tape, some ants, and a lot of witty scientific banter.

Lenakel town centre. Huge, eh?
Getting our stuff from the ferry.
Our outdoor work station loaded up with all our shipped gear.
Helping calibrate the FLYSPECs.
Just a friendly pet chicken.
I love the ridge running down the side of Yasur. And we got to drive past it almost every day.
Sometimes we hitched a ride across the ash plain. But other times we had to do it on foot.
Installing a seismic station. We had a few at several different locations so we could compare the data from each.
Proud of our solar-powered seismic installation.

As a reward for our hard work, we decided to go watch the fireworks again. This time I had my shit together so I could provide you with pretty pictures!

The local ni-Vanuatu did some kustom dances for us.
Watching the sunset from the crater rim.
As it gets darker, you can start to see the orange glow of the bombs.
See all the tourists? That’s one of the reasons learning about the hazards at Yasur is so important.
Not all fun, we also set up a weather station.
Tourists watching the eruptions.
And when it gets really dark, that’s when things get spectacular.

We also had to set up the thermal cameras. Since these see infrared light, they can see the eruption’s heat signal even if it is too cloudy or ashy to see with a normal camera or a human eye. It was pretty crazy working right on the volcano’s edge with the eruptions going on. Someone definitely always had an eye on the ballistics and the plume for safety!

Setting up all the angles just right to face down into the different erupting vents.
With the plume looming behind us the whole time…
The cameras are actually pretty small and fragile, they go inside the giant metal casings to protect them from the elements.
Taking advantage of solar power to keep the cameras running constantly.
Pretty ominous. Ben never did learn to control the eruptions with his magic staff.

Another important part of our job was the gas measurements. To do this, we have to travel back and forth underneath the ash plume to measure how much of certain volcanic gases are in it. On lucky days I got to sit on the back of Kelson’s pickup truck and drive back and forth quickly multiple times to get measurements while Ben operated it from inside. On not so lucky days, we had to walk back and forth across the ash plain on foot, one of us holding the computer while the other held the FLYSPEC.

Sitting in the gunner’s position, firing the FLYSPEC’s eye up into the sky.
Not so lucky today, so we’re preparing to walk instead.
Made it all the way to the far end of our walk, now we just need to trek all the way back home, measuring along the way.
Analysing the measurements live as they come in.

After Shane and Jen left, it was just Ben and me for the next week. We continued all of our measurements and observations daily. As exciting as it was, it was also routine. Every morning, climb the volcano, sit and observe for two hours while taking notes, check the thermal cameras. Then head back down, out to the ash plain to do gas measurements and collect ash samples. It was really cool to see the volcano change in behavior over the course of the week, sometimes explosive, sometimes more ashy.

Checking up on the thermal camera computers, and offloading the data. Round the clock operation takes up a lot of digital space!
Very serious about our daily observations.
Me and my best friend.
Ashy plume.
On days where it was super gassy we had masks to wear for safety.

…but now you’ve been patient, waiting for the pretty pictures. So here they are.

The skylight on the left grew during my time there.
It never had a full eruption like the one to the right, but gas flare would come out of it, which was cool.
Taking long exposure photos from up in the treehouse was super fun.
It was incredible to be able to see the ballistics flying up and out of the crater from so far away.
And the glow on the clouds produced by the volcano was pretty insane (though to be honest it didn’t look nearly as bright in person as it appears here)

We didn’t go up to the summit every night, but definitely did a few more times, because it was just too good opportunity to miss.

Mesmerizing, you could just watch it endlessly.
Sooo pretty…
The bright, gassy glow of the skylight.

Finally, at the end of the last night, I found the perfect location for a photo. The activity had died down quite a bit, so I had to be patient, but eventually it paid off.

Too dark…
Pretty, but not nearly explody enough…
Nailed it! 🙂

And with that, my two weeks of service were done! I left Ben to stick it out for another 10. Luckily he had some great helpers take my place.

Another fun part of the trip was making the movie at the beginning of this post. I spent a lot of the trip filming everything I thought might be interesting (and probably annoying the crap out of everybody else). Then, toward the end of my stay, I made Ben sit for some formal interviews that turned into the narration of the video. Editing it all together at the end was a good excuse to continue watching explosions for some time even after I’d returned!

Note: All photos with me in them were taken by Ben, all photos with me not in them were taken by me.

 

January 5, 2017

Top of the New Zealand!

Well that attempt to get caught up didn’t go as planned…still have Vanuatu and Chile to catch up on, but in the meantime, I’ll tackle something more manageable…

Cape Reinga

I’ve wanted to visit the northern tip of New Zealand ever since I got here. Not sure why exactly…thrill of exploration? Something about extremes? It’s not like there are any volcanoes up there. But still. Point is, wanted to go there. Didn’t go there. Went part of the way there. But still not there. Now I did. Sweet as.

The opportunity arose as a final trip for my friend and traveler-extraordinaire Aurelia who was finishing up hear nearly-a-year in NZ and Australia. She was already up in Northland, so I drove up to meet her in the quiet seaside town of Whangaroa. The town also contains an interesting landmark, St. Paul’s Rock. I can’t tell you a whole lot about it other than that it is a remanent of millions of years old volcanic activity in Northland.

The marina in Whangaroa
A little rock on a hill?
St. Paul’s Rock…not so little after all!
View from up on the Rock.
Some chains to help climb the steepest part.

From there, we drove north toward the top of Northland, stopping several times along the way at some nice beaches and other stops, including Ninety Mile Beach, an extremely long, straight beach that runs all the way up northern Northland’s west coast. You can drive on it (when the tide is far enough out, anyway), but I’m a bit of a chicken, and it didn’t seem like the view would change much in two miles (or 20), so we were content to take a look around and continue on.

Pretty beach on the drive up…first of many.
Ninety Mile Beach
Beach as far as the eye can see…
Yay dunes! They seem reasonable in size. I wouldn’t say giant, though…
A bit of sand art.

Next stop was Cape Reinga! We did it! Woo! Cape Reinga isn’t technically the northernmost point on the North Island. That would be Surville Cliffs, which is about three km farther north (but 30km away). But it is the end of Route 1, NZ’s end-to-end highway, so close enough…for now, anyway. There’s a lighthouse and some great views into the endless Pacific Ocean.

Looking out from the Cape…
…out onto the Pacific.
Cape Reinga Lighthouse
Mission accomplished!
We’re as tall as the lighthouse!

Next up was the Giant Sand Dunes. Remember the ordinary-sized sand dunes in the earlier photo? Forget them. These earned their name, for sure! Big enough that people rent boogie-boards and slide down them. We passed on that in favor of wandering about, geo-nerding out over the dune structures, and generally hoping we wouldn’t get sunburned.

Feels like a desert adventure!
See the sandboarders in the distance.
Cool coral-looking erosional sand structures
Reminds me a lot of White Sands, New Mexico. And amazing how the dunes come right up against the green forest!

Our campsite for the night was Spirits Bay, still way up north, with a good view of Cape Reinga. You can even see the lighthouse shining once it gets dark. The beach there was beautiful and made up of all sort of shells. There were wild horses. Sunset over the cape. What more could you want?

Wild horsies!
Sunset at Spirits Bay
Look at that sand! I’m sure I looked dignified with my face up against the ground taking this photo!
Breaking waves at dusk.
More pretty dusky light.

The next day cemented for me Northland’s claim to some of NZ’s best beaches. We leisurely worked our way back south, stopping along the way in the Bay of Islands, another of NZ’s older volcanic areas. On the recommendation of a friend, we stopped in a town called Rawhiti, which was tiny, but very nice. We got to take a walk around the beach and listen while a local guy strummed away on guitar.

Hadn’t seen whatever this plant is yet.
Pohutukawa trees in full bloom!
More NZ flowers!
The beach in Rawhiti
The water is so clear
More beautiful beach sand
Pohutukawa flowers. NZ’s Christmas tree
Relaxing in Rawhiti

Our best discovery, however, came purely by luck. We saw a sign for a beach parking lot on our right, and an awesome looking tree on our left, so we decided to make a quick stop.

The tree that caught our attention
Isn’t it an intriguing tree?
First view of this wondrous beach

That quick stop turned into a longer one, as it turned out to be one of the most stunning beaches I’ve ever seen. From the cool rock structures on the beach, to the clear water, the bright green hills right alongside the sand, everything about it was just awesome. Definitely a place to make a return trip.

I want the bach on that hill.
More pohutukawas.
Aurelia fully enjoying the amazing beach

Farther south, we found another nice place to camp for the night, so we pitched our tent and enjoyed the sunset.

Second night camp spot!
Duck friend came for dinner.

Our final stop before getting back to Auckland was the Mermaid Pools at Matapouri. They are essentially large tide pools that form on the rocky area by the water, large enough to swim in. You do a short climb over a big hill, and then you’re there!

The beach at Matapouri
Looking for mermaids…
First view of the pools
We didn’t have time for a swim, but we did climb down to the pools to check it out.

From there we raced back down to Auckland so I could go to some meetings at uni, and our 3-day trip was done!

October 23, 2016

It’s been long as, let’s catch up!

Well I’ve been pretty slack with this blog thing lately… There’s no way I’ll do justice to most of the stuff that’s been going on, so how about we just do a quick, mostly photo-based run through of some cool NZ places I’ve been in the last several months?

Rangitoto: Auckland’s youngest volcano

It’s sitting out there in Auckland harbor…Auckland’s most recently erupted volcano (~600 years ago), looking pretty and green and just a bit intimidating. Could it erupt again? Not likely (as part of a volcanic field, it’s classified as monogenetic–that is, it’s one shot only by definition), but that’s actually a pretty intense academic debate that I’ll leave alone here. Lucky for me I just got to have a nice ferry ride over, a short climb to the top, and a walk through some cool lava tubes.

View of Auckland skyline from the ferry
Pretty nice view from the top of Rangitoto
The crater isn’t all that volcano-y looking
Exploring a lava tube easily thanks to light through the collapsed ceiling
Beautiful harbor we passed by on our walk back around to the dock
And the volcano itself, of course!

More Taranaki Fieldwork and the coldest night of my life

Did a few more fieldwork trips to Taranaki for a bit more sample collection back before winter began. Mostly little of note, but on my last trip of the season, I camped overnight on the way from Auckland to Wellington with the hope of collecting a few last samples. Let’s just say I slightly underestimated how cold it would get at night and ended up so cold that by 3am I couldn’t sleep anymore and had to sit in the car. Oops. Unbelievably clear and beautiful night sky, though, and I did get my samples, so not so terrible in the end!

Always good to see my friend.
Working in the river channels as usual.
Still looks great even without snow on top!
Got to feed birds at the sanctuary I sometimes stop at on my drive down 🙂
A bit of snow should’ve tipped me off that things would be a bit colder…
Pretty in the dark, but sooooo cold. Next time with a camera that can show the stars!

Also messed around with some time lapses during the sunset. So you can see what it looks like for the sun to set in Taranaki on a clear day!

I continued down to Wellington afterwards to experiment on the samples I’d just collected–here’s what it looks like from my lab at the University of Victoria perched high up on the hill above the city centre.

A bit of Auckland regional geology

A few field trips, some uni-related, others just for fun to check out some cool regional parks with some cool rocks.

Awesomely gruesome caution sign at a north Auckland winery.
Alternating rock layers at Hatfield’s Beach on the coast north of Auckland
Cool to see how the more resistant layers stick out beyond the more easily eroded ones
Sweet staircase built into the cliff
Overseeing undergraduate students doing a mapping project at Matheson Bay (north of Auckland)
Carefully evaluating each outcrop
Cliffs and beaches along Auckland’s west coast near Piha

Tongariro Fieldwork

I never pass up a chance to help out a fellow PhD student with fieldwork, which meant I took a couple trips down to Tongariro National Park to help out Mia, one of the other PhD students in the department who is researching the last several thousand years of tephra deposits from Tongariro volcano. We did a lot of driving around–it’s important to learn what deposits from each of the volcano’s eruptions look like (many of them have distinctive characteristics) and then identify those deposits in as many locations as possible.

Each outcrop often contains thousands of years of volcanic record
Sometimes you have to climb a bit to get to the good stuff
Each layer represents a different eruptive event
Benefits of fieldwork in an active geothermal area–hot pools at the end of the day!
We’re not above wearing hi-vis vests to keep safe when the outcrops are on the side of the Desert Road
Tephra Paradise! Surrounded by Tongariro history on all sides!
Traversing the barren landscape.
Jumping photos are pretty hard. (That’s Tongariro in the background.)

Here’s an example of what we do when we investigate an outcrop–mostly walk around pointing at stuff, discuss things, take notes (in superspeed!).

Coromandel

I’ve been lucky enough to have a few friends come visit me in NZ already. And when they do, of course I take them to see something geological! Recently my friend Katherine stopped by Auckland during her trip to NZ from the US. We took a trip out to the Coromandel Peninsula to see Cathedral Cove. It’s a pretty sweet collection of arches and sea stacks formed from millions of years-old ignimbrite deposits (volcanic deposits resulting from huge pumice-filled eruptions).

Tunnel eroded through the rock formation
Sea stack of ignimbrite–was once attached to the cliffs along the coast but since eroded until it was seperate
Peaceful beach
Looking out to the sea stacks from inside the cave
Another awesome formation with cool sand features from water flowing over the beach
Hot Water Beach–a geothermal area where you can dig your own hot pool in the sand!

Vanuatu…just a peek!

I mentioned not passing up a chance to help with fieldwork…that goes double when I get offered a chance to travel to do it! My officemate, Ben, is living in Vanuatu for three months monitoring Yasur, one of the world’s most active volcanoes. In September I got to go help him…and to see my first eruptions. That’s a YUUUGE moment for a volcanologist! I’ll try to do a whole post on that later, I certainly have enough photos!

Yasur volcano in all its glory, as seen from a dried-up lake bed nearby
Ash cloud (and volcanic bombs) from the constant eruptions (nearly 1 per minute)
The eruptions were even more spectacular at night
And you can see them even a ways off from the volcano!
June 14, 2016

A Little Bit of Culture

Quick pivot back from science to fun! (Not that I mean to say those things are in any way mutually exclusive. I think all my science posts are fun. But this post is all fun and no science, so be forewarned. Wooooooooooo…)

Way back when it was still nice out I took a long-weekend trip with my flatmates to Hawke’s Bay region, on the east coast of the North Island. While most of my trips are nature and tramping-based (which is somewhat governed by the fact that those are the best things to do in NZ), this trip was actually a bit more about culture and man-made stuff. The trip started with a long drive towards Taupo and then a few hours more, luckily I was buoyed by a coffee that fully justifies all the fun-making I do about the Kiwi accent.

IMG_3836

Saying it funny is one thing, but this?

Along the way, on the advice of our soon-to-be couchsurfing host, we made a couple stops: a historic site of a Maori ambush of some British soldiers, a nice waterfall, and an awesome bridge where you can walk on the scaffolding underneath to get a great view.

The scene of the ambush.
With some low-key gravestones.
The waterfall was actually quite impressive, unfortunately we couldn’t get very close.
Yay bridges!
The view from the underbelly.
Just a bit rickety, luckily no huge trucks went over it while we were down there.

We didn’t have much planned for the first night, so we just took a look around Napier, one of the main cities in the region, while we were killing time until we could meet our host. Napier is known for its “art deco” style architecture. The whole city has the same style because it basically was completely destroyed in a 1931 earthquake, which meant all the current buildings were built at roughly the same time, hence similar styles. To me it feels like walking around inside a comic book (with the street signs being a really nice extra touch)!

The church…so…blocky…
More buildings.
A monument that was destroyed by the earthquake and later restored.
Fun colors!
So comic-booky!
And on the water too, we did a bit of laying out by the ocean.

After dinner in town, we drove out to the countryside (waaay out there in the dark) to meet Dave, a 50something British transplant schoolteacher who loves hosting couchsurfers in his free time. He was super nice and gave us good advice on how to spend the rest of our days in the region.

IMG_3886

I got my own room! It may have been the storage closet, but it was cozy and it was mine! 🙂

Based on the weather, we decided to make our next day our “nature stuff” day and go do all the outside things in the area. First up was Te Mata peak, a high point near Hastings, the region’s other big city. It was a nice nature reserve with some redwood trees and a few options for hikes. We took the longest one, a 2-3 hour hike that went to the top of the peak (it’s only 400m high, so not all that difficult of a climb). There was also a road to the top, so it was one of those instances where you get there only to find a bunch of tourists getting out of their cars…but we earned our view the hard way!

One of the views early on the way up.
Mini-redwood forest.
Not as tall as in CA, but still pretty impressive.
There were sheep just hanging out wherever.
Nice views from the top.
It’s mostly just surrounded by forests and farmland.
Walking up the path.
At the top!

From there we took a drive over to Cape Kidnappers, a peninsula on the east coast a bit south of Napier and Hastings. It sticks a few km out into the Pacific Ocean, and got its name from an attempt by a few Maori men to kidnap one of Captain Cook’s crew members during his time in New Zealand. You can walk out along the beach under the high cliffs — if you walk far enough there is a gannet colony at the end. You can also take a tractor ride if you’re lazy. We didn’t make it out to the birds — you need to time your walk with the tides to make it all the way to the end — but we hiked out a decent ways before turning around..

Birds on the sign! You know it’s going to be good.
There goes our ride. Guess we’re walking.
Looking back towards where we came from.
Cool erosional structures on the cliffs.
There it is!
I couldn’t help but stop to look at the weird cracked rock.
I see lazy people tracks.
One last look.

Of course, more than anything, Hawke’s Bay is probably famous for its wine, so we couldn’t leave without visiting a winery! Dave had recommended his favorite, Abbey winery, so we drove over and hung out for a while. We got to taste a few of their wines and listen to a guy playing some nice acoustic covers of classic rock, a pretty chill afternoon.

A nice selection.
Grapes!
The winery itself.

That was it for the day, so after another dinner in Napier, we went back out to the country, where I noted Dave’s awesome taste in storage room wall posters.

IMG_3953

Anyone who has volcano posters on their walls is cool in my book.

The next day we decided to explore Napier a bit more. We checked out the botanical gardens as well as the museum (no photographs allowed!) which had some cool artwork exhibits and a really interesting exhibit on the 1931 earthquake that leveled the town. After that we decided to just take a break and lie out by the beach for a bit.

Botanical gardens, a map so we don’t get lost in the plants and birds forever
Yaay? White pigeons…
Cool little parakeets, reminds me of my childhood pets.
A couple of huge palm trees.
If you fall, do a triple axel instead!
Miniature waterfall.
The museum with the cool earthquake exhibit.
Chillin’ by the pier.
Watching the waves come in…

Finally, we were told the the lady in the museum that there was a conservation-based street art exhibit all around Napier, and she gave us a map to go search out the different pieces, done right on the side of buildings. So we spent the rest of the afternoon walking around town, finding awesome graffiti murals.

Sea turtles and a fish.
Some cool Adventure Time-y looking dudes.
The best one of all, of course. Geology murals, hooray!
Cool glowy fish.
Penguins!
This one might’ve been my favorite. A bit more subtle but still awesome.
A friendshipy mural.
More turtles and fish.
The last one we found. Too bad we didn’t have time to see them all! Maybe next time!

And that’s it! The next day we headed back up to Auckland, having successfully explored one more region of the North Island!

June 1, 2016

This Is How We Do It

A quick follow up to yesterday’s post — I made a fun video of our fieldwork trip so you can see exactly what we’re up to, and set it to a jaunty tune. Enjoy!

I’m really enjoying trying to tell stories about science through film, and I hope I can do a lot more of it in the future. I’m actually currently taking a course the the organization called SciFund on how to make good science youtube videos, so hopefully there will be more where this came from!

May 31, 2016

Science, dammit!

Buckle up for some geology! Now that you’ve seen what it takes to get to the top of a 2518m high volcano, let’s see what happens when you do it a second time. Only with shitloads of stuff strapped to your back and actual things to accomplish once you get to the top.

As I mentioned, one of the best places to find recent material from Taranaki’s last eruptions is way up at the top. Looking at Taranaki’s most recent lava flows can help us in lots of ways. We can compare it to material we find lower on the volcano. We can look at fresher and more weathered material. We can look at different parts of the lava dome to see if the lava cooled at different rates in different places and try to learn what ways it affects the lava’s properties.

But the simplest thing we can try to do with those hot hot lava rocks (that are now cold) is try to figure out how old they are. If we decide that the lava dome at the top of Mt. Taranaki’s collapse was probably the last thing to happen there, then if we figure out how old those rocks are, we can probably tell when the volcano last erupted.

(The reason we don’t know this already is because the last eruption was before European settlement of the area. From this we know it must be older than at least the mid-1800s. Maori people were there at this time, for sure, but as far as I know there aren’t any datable written records or stories tied to an eruption.)

Our goal for this trip was to collect samples that I could try to date using paleomagnetic methods in the lab in Wellington. On my trips lower down you may remember me collecting rock samples that I would drill holes in in the lab later. But this time we decided to go full on and collect our cores in the field in order to be as accurate as possible.

Hiking in the night before, just like the first time.
The lonely mountain in twilight.
Sunrise the next morning.
Suit up!

This was a bigger job, though, so it required a bigger team. A both of my Auckland-based supervisors, Shane and Mike, and a couple fellow students from Auckland, Edgar and Jie, came with me, along with my friend Elisa, our Wellington-based paleomag expert.

For starters, the trip was longer than the first time. We’d be climbing two consecutive days, meaning we had to carry a whole bunch of food in addition to our gear (and possibly some lovely boxes of wine–we do our geology in style!). Oh, yeah…the gear. Hammer, chisel, chainsaw-sized drill and all its accessories, and more. Heck of a lot more than I had on my fun first climb.

We made our camp at the same awesome Tahurangi Lodge that I stayed at last time. It was definitely nice to have a little comfort at the end of the day.

From there, our first job was to hike to the top. Now, doing paleomag drilling is simple enough when your outcrops are by the roadside. Stop somewhere and fill up your water tanks, pull up on the side of the road, do your thing, go home. If you run out of water, just fill up again and get back to work.

We meet again, evil scree field.
Yep, that’s how I was feeling at that particular moment.
Poorly framed and not well centered, just like my thoughts by the time I reached top.

 

In our case, however, we had to get all that same stuff to the top of the of the volcano to get to our sample sites, and there was nowhere to get more water once we were up there (we gave some thought to melting snow, but couldn’t come up with an efficient enough solution). That meant splitting up about 45 liters of water, a couple liters of fuel, and all the drill stuff between everyone for the trip up. It was probably the most difficult fieldwork I’ve ever done — steep enough as is, but even harder when weighed down by a super full pack.

But we did make it! Hooray! Once we were up there, we moseyed around to the western side of the summit to see the collapsed crater. That’s where the volcano’s most recent lava dome grew, then collapsed, leaving a giant horseshoe-shaped amphitheater behind. This was probably sometime in the 1800s, but we don’t yet know for sure.

In order to compare different parts of the dome and learn as much as we can about Taranaki’s most recent activity, we needed samples from lots of different parts of the dome, which meant climbing all around the collapse amphitheater and around the snow fields to pick out a few different sites to core.

One look into the crater before we head around the side.
The collapse amphitheater on the northwestern side.
Still lots of snow to slide on. Wheee!
Getting to work.
Drilling at the top of the snowfield.
Pretty holes.

Once we’d taken a good look, we picked some sample locations on different parts spread around the area and got to work drilling our cores. Drilling and orienting is a team effort. For the most efficient work, it takes two to drill–one to do the actual drilling and one to man the pump bottle to keep water running through the drill so it operates well. Then it takes another one or two to take accurate measurements and write careful on the cores and collect them to take home — that way the drillers can already move on to the next site. ***drilling note at end***

Looking around for more sample sites.
Are we going uphill or downhill here? Almost hard to tell!
I think this is definitely a stroke penalty for whoever hit it.
Where to next?
Contouring around the volcano was pretty tricky at times.
Looking down towards The Turtle.
Not a bad backdrop for some drilling!

In order to learn more about the formation of the lava dome, we made sure to take samples from both the outside carapace of the dome that had cooled and remained in place as well as the fresh material that is newly exposed where the side of the dome collapsed. That way we can try to look for differences between the two types: Did one cool faster? Do they contain the same minerals? Are the mineral crystals different sizes? Did they record the same paleomagnetic field?

As you saw in the picture above, we usually drill about 8-12 small holes per site, and on the first day we were able to do five sites. Not bad for a day’s work! And we felt pretty good about having carried all that water since we used almost all of it. Imagine how upset we would have been if we’d worked so hard to get up there and then quit early because we ran out!

On the way down we were treated to some pretty awesome views or the surrounding area. The perfect circle of the edge of the park still impresses me. Combined with the shadow Taranaki casts in the evenings, it’s a pretty unusual sight.

It’s a long way down. But a lot faster than the way up!
Not too many places where you can get a picture like this!

Back at the lodge were were able to have some delicious soup packets, tea, dinner, and wine, and rest up for day two.

So did I complain about the first day being the hardest fieldwork I’d ever done? I was being a wuss. Day two was the hardest fieldwork I’ve ever done. Carrying all the same stuff up the volcano a second straight day was seriously hard work and at times frustrating (especially when constantly sliding backwards trying to climb the scree field) — early on I was genuinely concerned I might not make it! But after some tough times in the early going, we actually all made it to the top faster than we did on the first day.

The whole team having a snack at the top while the wait for me to finally catch up.
A bit cloudier than the day before.
Bunny-shaped cloud!
“I sure hope somebody knows where we’re going!”
We found a good outcrop! Now everybody look for the perfect spot to take our samples!

The weather wasn’t nearly as good the second day, it was quite a bit chillier, and visibility was pretty low. Luckily my supervisor had a good idea where we were going. We did another four sites — some were more parts of the lava dome, but we also sampled The Turtle, an interesting feature a little ways down from the top that is very visible when looking at Mt. Taranaki from the west. Despite some tough conditions and a bit of slipping and sliding, we stayed focused, worked hard, and got everything we needed so that all our sarcastic comments about having to come up a third straight day could just remain jokes.

Working our way down through the fog.
Going down is also way easier because you’re 10L of water lighter!
My gloves were good-as-new two days ago! All the scree-grabbing-and-sliding will do that.

After staying another night in the lodge, we were able to head home with all the samples we needed to do a good investigation, and also comfortable in the knowledge that if we ever need to come back and get more samples, we’ll know exactly what to do. I’ve already gotten my teeth into testing the samples from this trip in the paleomagnetism lab down in Wellington, and though we don’t have any conclusive results yet, we’re well on our way to learning a lot more about the lonely volcano.

***Note on drilling: Mt. Taranaki is a beautiful and culturally important mountain. As such, we make our best effort to be as non-disruptive and non-destructive as possible when doing fieldwork. But sometimes the only way to do the science is to take the samples, as in this case. Before we even planned the drilling, we consulted with the NZ Department of Conservation and local iwi to get all proper permissions for the work and to make sure we did it in a way where all parties involved could be happy. When actually on the mountain, we always made an effort to drill our cores in places far off the beaten path where they won’t bother anyone, and often in areas where weathering and further collapse will likely remove them altogether over time.***

May 1, 2016

Who wants to climb a volcano?

I promised some more geology lessons way back when and I haven’t followed through very well on that, but now I’ll try to make good on that promise. Or at least, I’ll lay the groundwork for the some science.

While I’ve mentioned before I’m interested in all the deposits on the northwestern side of Mt. Taranaki because they are the most recent, the other best place to find really recent stuff is by going straight to the source. What’s younger than the lava right at the top of the volcano?

Before we did any serious sample collecting, I decided to take a recon/fun trip to the top to see what it was like. That way when I planned the serious fieldwork, I would know what I was getting us into. Where do we want to sample? How hard is it to get there? How much can we do in a day? Etc.

My plans for this coincided perfectly with my geo-friend  and super-adventurer Aurelia’s arrival in NZ back in February, so we headed down there to check things out. After driving up to the visitor’s centre, we hiked about 1.5 hours in to the Tahurangi Lodge, an awesome mountain house owned by the Taranaki Alpine Club (that generously let me join), where we stayed for the first night. This gave us a nice head start for the real climb.

Just starting the climb, all bright-eyed and fresh-legged.
Making our way up the final section before the Lodge, called “The Puffer”.
While it is nice and paved, The Puffer is definitely steep enough to deserve its name!
View from the hut. I always love looking at the really clear edges of the park.
A full kitchen and more. What luxury!
Even a library!
And fun games to keep us occupied.
The lights of New Plymouth in the distance.

The next morning we got an early start and headed up to the top. It was quite the climb! Not technically difficult in any sense, anyone in good enough shape could do it. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t pretty hard work! From the lodge, there’s three main sections to go through to get to the top. The first third is just dirt tracks and steep, long staircases. The second third is probably the hardest–a huge field of loose scree that shifts under you every time you take a step, meaning progress is pretty slow and frustrating. The final third is a scramble over a series of rocky, jagged lava flows called “the Lizard”.

Nothing like the sight of a volcano in the morning.
Our lovely lodge…and another volcano or two off in the distance.
Look how far we’ve climbed already!
Stairs, stairs, and more stairs.
I think scree is probably named for the sound you want to yell while trying to climb up it. Screeeeee!
Getting there, but still have to climb the Lizard!

Finally, after these trials, you reach the crater. And despite it being summer, it was full of snow! The crater contains Taranaki’s current summit lava dome, which was created during its most recent eruptions and rises to the volcano’s highest point of 2518m. It’s also collapsed to the northwest, as we’ll talk about later.

The snowy crater.
Looking towards the crater wall.
The Shark’s Tooth, another major feature near the summit.
Exploring!
The eastern side of the dome.
Fantham’s Peak, a lower peak on the south side of the volcano.
Some sweet as lava rocks.
Me, just reveling in the awesomeness of it all.

After exploring the crater for a while and taking note of good sampling sites (and even taking a short nap while we waited for some clouds to blow through), we were almost ready to head back down. We wanted to go up to the very top, but it was so foggy that it didn’t seem worth it. Luckily we decided to go for it anyway, because just as we reached the summit everything cleared up and we got a great view.

Pretty interesting landscape inside the fog…
And what a view! 😛
Heading out along the top of the dome.
Ah, now that’s the view!
Crazy hair volcano selfie!

The way back down was quite a bit faster (from the lodge, it was a bit under 3 hours to the top but less than 2 hours to cover the same distance on the way down). As much trouble as scree fields are to climb, going down they’re super fun. If you’re willing to end up on your butt a few times, you can kind of jump from foot to foot and ski down as it shifts under your feet. Whee! After stopping for a short break at the lodge, we hiked out the rest of the way. Surprisingly, the final hour or so, which should’ve been the easiest part, was actually frustratingly hard because my stupid wobbly toddler legs wouldn’t go where I wanted them to and we couldn’t walk properly. Nonetheless, we made it! The next day was the sorest I’ve probably every been (but, you know, in a good way). And this was just the test run for the real thing!

Great view of Pouakai on the way down.
Low-visibility scree-skiing is fun!
I love you, Tahurangi Lodge!
Oh, Puffer, why are you soooo steep?
Relaxing at the beach on the following day.

Now that I’d been there and knew what things were like at the top of Taranaki, I was ready to plan our big sampling expedition! See, now you’re ready for the science next time.

Oh yeah, as a bonus, check this out! While we were up there we shot an (only slightly embarrassing) educational video for my mom’s 3rd grade class that my brother edited into an awesome geology lesson. I think it turned out pretty well!

March 2, 2016

The Big Tiki Tour

Alright, let’s do it. While I’ve got lots of cool pictures to share from the South Island trip, there’s too much science to get to to dwell forever on it, so let’s get the rest done in one fell swoop. I’ll go light on the paragraphs, with most of the commentary contained in snarky photo captions… Ready? Go!

Queenstown

Where the cool kids go to ski! And do other outsidy stuff! No snow when we were there, but a pretty cool town on a pretty lake with some pretty mountains, and lots of restaurants and buzz going down at night.

The most obvious and touristy (but still worth it) thing to do was to take the gondola up to the top of Bob’s Peak above the town, with a great view down over Queenstown and Lake Wakatipu. Bob was a pretty savvy businessman to build his restaurant/viewing platform/luge track up on His Peak. Maybe Donald could learn a little about winning from Bob. I bet Bob is tired of winning from winning so much. Anyway…

On the way up the gondola.
Taking a gondola with no plans to go skiing at the top? Sacrilege!
View from the top of Bob’s Peak.
I know I’m good looking, but the view is behind you! 😛
Another one of Lake Wakatipu.
Luge! It looked so fun!

With a little more time to kill before dinner, we used the internet machine to look up more things to do, and settled on the drive north along Lake Wakatipu to the small town of Glenorchy at the top of the lake. It is apparently regarded as one of the world’s top scenic drive. Having now driven it, I won’t dispute that. The views all along were absurdly beautiful, and the windy road was pretty fun to drive on, too!

Not really doing the drive justice.
Closer…
There, that’s more like it…
Can’t argue with this.
Indeed.
The bustling metropolis of Glenorchy.
Even the view in town was pretty great.
Cows and mountains, that’s New Zealand.

Back in Queenstown, we got to enjoy a nice dinner and a sunset-ish from the lakeshore. The next day we also took a little walk around before heading out.

Lake Wakatipu at dusk.
Lake Wakatipu with ducks.
And with birds. I like birds.
Similar view the next morning.
A walk through Queenstown Gardens.
Some nice trees, flowers, reflecting pools.
More flowers.
Someone in Queenstown has the right idea.
View from a little out the east end of town.
My favorite NZ duck. The rare, super ‘Merican bald-eagle-duck.
I tried to copy the statue but I forgot my sheep. Also I looked the wrong way.

After finishing, we set off on the drive to Te Anau, the southernmost point of our journey, stopping for a few diversions along the way.

Chinese worker settlement in Arrowtown.
Nice to get a bit of history in between all the nature.
Bridge at Roaring Meg, a hydro plant in Otago.
Pretty river.
Bungy jumping at over the Kawarau River. Crazy, crazy people.
One last look at Lake Wakatipu form the southern tip.

Te Anau and Milford Sound

After a long drive through not much of anything, we got to Te Anau–the last outpost of civilization on the way to Fiordland and Milford Sound. It’s possible to take a multi-day hiking trip out that way, but that will have to be for another time. Instead we opted for a bus to boat tour. We stopped a few times along the road back up to the west coast, finally arriving at a boat terminal where we’d get floated out to the sea.

Mirror Lakes…not much to reflect on this particular day.
View along the road.
Some snowmelt waterfalls coming down the cliffs.
Jetty at the boat terminal.
Not a bad view..and we’re not even on the boat yet!
The motley collection of boats.
More birds. This guy was quite loud!
No parkour, only be happy when you run off cliffs, ….snow?

The ferry took us out to the mouth of the Sound where it meets the Tasman Sea. Despite clouds earlier in the day, it was actually so sunny at first during the boat ride that all the photographs were super washed-out. So I sat back and let all the silly people take all their photos and enjoyed the view and waited for better lighting.

Still close to shore…
Lion rock…see…it’s a lion! I mean…get it?
Don’t forget the kiwi photos!
Cliffs!
Pretty sure there were seals there, but you’ll have to trust me.

And then on the way back, I leapt into action!

View back into the Sound from the edge.
The Tasman Sea
All the people looking places from the boat
See, I told you there were seals!
Waterfall and super green water.
Lots of pictures of the boat’s wake
The NZ maritime flag
Not a bad place for a portrait.
And waterfalls too!

After the Milford Sound part of the tour, we made a couple more short stopoffs on the way back to Te Anau, then headed towards Dunedin to start working our way back around to Christchurch.

The Chasm…dun dun duuuun! What an ominous name.
Look deep into its chasmy darnkess!
To see a babbling brook.
Ok, that’s a little cooler.
There’s the snow the mini-waterfalls are melting from.
Geology in-jokes! Mavora Lakes is an area that relates a bit to the paleomagnetism part of my research.

Dunedin+

A lot of my colleagues make a lot of jokes about Dunedin having really crappy weather all the time. So of course when we got there it was raining. But contrary to the stereotype, it was actually quite nice there while we explored for a couple hours before moving on. So by my calculation, it rains 50% of the time in Dunedin.

Look how dry it is!
Still not a bad view of the city at night.
The old train station. Where all the tourists go.
See, sunny in Dunedin! I have photographic proof!
Another old building
The “world’s steepest street”. Good job Dunedin?

On the drive back to Christchurch, we stopped at an interesting geologic site, the Moeraki Boulders. Located on the beach near the town of Hampden, they’re a bunch of super nice and round, sometimes interesting fractured…boulders. I know, you’re thinking only a geologist would care about a bunch of big rocks on the beach. But actually they were pretty cool! And lots of people were there, so I’m not alone in my nerd-dom.

The boulders all lined up on the beach.
And cool cracks, just like I promised!
Even cracks filled with other minerals! Okay, fine, probably only I’m interested in that.
So many angles to look from.
I promise I didn’t draw this myself…but I did stop to take the photo, which basically shows my maturity level, I guess.
See, look at all the people in the background of the shot, told you!
Riding the boulders! Yee-haw! Away!

Christchurch

The second time around in Christchurch we actually got to look around for a short bit. It’s pretty easy to see the impacts of the huge 2011 earthquake that caused so much damage. Pretty good 1st-world example of the devastation natural disasters can cause.

The old Christchurch Cathedral, largely destroyed by the 2011 earthquake.
A big part is collapsed, and you can see right inside from the end.
The “Cardboard Cathedral”, named for its construction, built to be a quick replacement.
There you can see the construction from the inside.
As I’ve said before, for all the other stuff about churches, they provide some pretty amazing architecture.

Back to the North Island!

Having had a pretty low-key New Years Eve at a little park gathering in Christchurch, we flew back up north to Auckland to start the new year with a short trip around the North Island. Since I’ve been to a lot more places up here, I could play tour guide and take my parents to some of my favorite spots. Unfortunately, the weather that was so perfect on the South Island was long gone, and things were pretty ugly for most of the second part of the trip. The biggest downside to this: NO VOLCANOES!!! Seriously, I look at volcanoes for a living and the few days we tried to go to Taranaki and Ruapehu, there was more or less nothing to be seen. What a bummer. At least we got half a look at Taranaki from the plane.

We did stop at a bird sanctuary, which is cool, because I like birds (#birds). And we got to see a Kiwi! They’re nocturnal so no pictures, but they’re super big and fluffy and awesome. And the place is on my way to do fieldwork every time, so I will get my fill of Kiwi-watching while I’m in NZ. We also took a stop to see the Waitomo gloworm caves. A bit touristy, but pretty cool to take a boat ride through the darkness with all the little glowy dudes on the ceiling (but, obviously it was dark so no pictures).

Bird conservatory! Parakeets!
Bald eagle duck!
Sand piper thingy!
The only picture from Waitomo Caves.
Best view of Taranaki.
Taranaki beach in fairly bleak weather.
Flower from the botanical garden we walked around.

After an ill-advised drive over some pretty treacherous dirt roads in a torrential downpour, we arrived at Ruapehu, where we saw…nothing. I thought if we drove up to the ski field, we might punch through the clouds and get a view. Alas, still nothing. So on to Taupo, where we at least got to see a waterfall. We also stopped by some hot pools. I’d been to them before at night during the winter. In that setting they’re pretty creepy…but still better because they’re far less crowded than daytime during the summer!

Huka Falls
Spa Road hot pools. So many people!

Finally, it was on to Rotorua for the final bit of the trip. On the way we stopped at the Waiotapu thermal area, kind of a Yellowstone-lite. Nice enough, but nothing quite compares to Yellowstone, so it’s not really a fair fight. We also took a look at some of the lakes that I’ve been to on previous trips.

Do not be a person. Also, do not punch hot things.
Mud pits.
Hot springs.
Dirty yucky water.
Wild birds. With baby birds that were too small for me to photograph.
The coolest part. Interesting yellow lake that was actually the color you see.
Blue Lake.
Lake Tarawera.

And that’s the deal! Lots of things! It was a bit rushed, but not too bad for two weeks. With those things covered, my glaring areas in NZ that I haven’t been to include the northern part of the South Island, and the North Island’s east coast, among other things. I’ll have to fix that soon!

In the meantime, coming up…science, geology, volcanoes!