Literal shaky ground
Last week in Wellington I was lying in bed getting ready to sleep when I thought I felt the rumblings of a large truck going by. It died down, then a stronger shake hit. The…
Last week in Wellington I was lying in bed getting ready to sleep when I thought I felt the rumblings of a large truck going by. It died down, then a stronger shake hit. The…
This week I have been learning about how ice shapes the seafloor, a new concept for me. Part of my job is recognising patterns deep below our oceans, interpreting what caused them, and then understanding…
Driving between Wellington and Te Awamutu last week, my geologist brain was on high alert. I was unaware of the storm that had passed through the King Country on October 16, a few days prior,…
A first eruption holds a special place in every volcanologist’s heart. Mine was in 2013 near Kagoshima city, located at the southern end of Kyushu Island in Japan. I was there for a volcanology conference…
Last week I took a short hiatus from this column as I had a busy time moving down to Wellington, and I have had a fairly typical welcome. I had emotionally prepared myself for the…
When a hazardous geologic process is triggered, the consequences can be felt far away and in seemingly unexpected ways. Cascading hazards are those that are related as part of a sequence of events across both…
Our planet has the incredible ability to create new parts of itself. Volcanic eruptions occur when material from deep within the Earth rises and forms new landscapes. Islands are built this way, layer by layer,…
“Tourists warned of volcano (in capital letters) alert in Spanish holiday hotspot as locals urged to leave homes” This was a headline published a few weeks ago by Great Britain News, and I want to…
One of the best parts of my work with GeoTenerife in the Canary Islands is working with students. One who stood out immediately was Leah Gomm from the United Kingdom. Her bubbly personality made an…
Right now, my work is focused on assessing geological hazards across vast expanses of the seafloor, encompassing volcanic activity and deposits, earthquakes, landslides, tsunamis, and just about everything else you could imagine. The learning curve…
