Titahi Bay is a great place to visit if you are interested to see some of the geology near Wellington. There are a number of very interesting features to look at and explore. The first thing to check out is the coastal landforms caused by a combination of the atmosphere and the sea, as well […]
Titahi Bay Geology Read More »
Last week I was in Hawkes Bay with geologist Kyle Bland, who led a field trip for teachers, students and parents of Crownthorpe School. Hawkes Bay geology is a story of uplift along fault lines, combined with rapid erosion and deposition by rivers flowing from the inland mountain ranges. This story is etched into the
A dynamic landscape in Hawkes Bay Read More »
Last week I visited Palliser Bay in the Wairarapa. Along the coastline there are many exposures of mudstone from the Hurupi Formation, about 11 to 8 million years old. These mudstones contain abundant marine shell fossils, but are also known for occasional whale bones. After some time searching, as luck would have it, I found
Whakataki is a spectacular spot on the Wairarapa coast just north of Castlepoint. It features as one of the localities on our GeoTrips websiteThe shoreline is a large area of tilted rock strata that have been eroded into a broad, flat platform extending for hundreds of metres along the coast. The rock layers are alternating
In 1958, Petroleum Geologist Don Haw was mapping the rocks in the Mohaka river catchment of Western Hawkes Bay. The project was part of a wide ranging exercise to evaluate the hydrocarbon potential of the East Coast basin at that time for BP, Shell and Todd. His discovery of reptile bones in the Cretaceous sediments
NZ’s First Reptile Discoverer returns to Mangahouanga Read More »
Cape Kidnappers and the Clifton Cliffs make for a spectacular geological site in Hawkes Bay. The cliffs extend for several kilometres southwards from Clifton, on the coast near Hastings. They are very high and consist of quite loose rocks, so it is important not to go too close where possible. It is also important to
Along with Waipatiki, another excellent Hawkes Bay locality for looking at rocks laid down over a cycle of sea level change is Darkeys Spur, about twenty minutes by car west of Lake Tutira. The road is very narrow and care should be exercised to park safely and watch out for vehicles. Fortunately the road is
Darkeys Spur’s rock record of sea level change Read More »
Last week, following my visit to Castlepoint I also headed further north to Hawkes Bay. State Highway 2 runs parallel to the central North Island mountain ranges, which had just received fresh snow from a recent southerly blast, to provide a classic New Zealand pastoral scene… Te Mata Peak near Havelock North is a popular
Palliser Bay is an isolated sweep of coastline about 2 hours drive from Wellington. It is separated from New Zealand’s busy capital city by the Rimutaka Range. Yesterday I visited the area with a group of Lower Hutt school children as part of their Year Seven geology camp. Fully armed with the “Kiwi Fossils Hunter’s
If you are reading this blog, you presumably like the idea of getting outside and appreciating the landscape and its underlying geological features. James Crampton and Marianna Terezow are paleontologists here at GNS Science. They have just published a great book for fossil enthusiasts called the Kiwi Fossil Hunter’s Handbook. It is full of interesting
Turning over an old leaf with the Fossil Hunter’s Handbook Read More »