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An earthquake on the Alpine Fault has a coin-flip chance of dislodging a landslide into Milford Sound, which will almost certainly set off a tsunami. We know this because it’s happened at least 30 times before.
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The Weekender |
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SEPTEMBER 13, 2024
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This afternoon I watched as members of the public streamed through the atrium in Britomart, downtown Auckland, clutching boxes of sushi or staring into the abyss of their mobile phones. They would look up, mainly for navigation purposes, and their eyes would be drawn to a photograph, stretched out to 1.5 metres wide, glowering in colour and depth. Even if their legs kept moving, their heads would stop, eyeballs rotating in the sockets, drawn by some magnetic human response to a still image. Their course would change and they would stop, arrested for a moment by a snapshot of a story they either found compellingly familiar or attractively alien to their experience. Here are images of wild horse and beach cast whales, fellow Kiwis in states of celebration or distress, places they recognised, others they couldn't fathom. One of the real joys of convening Photographer of the Year for the past 16 years has been pulling this sort of photographic exhibition out of galleries and into public space where it can enthral and challenge ordinary Kiwis in equal measure. You can see the images online, but to see them in all their glory, check them out the exhibition in Britomart, and keep a good grip on your sushi. |
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DISASTER RESILIENCE Scientists are racing to understand tsunami riskAn earthquake on the Alpine Fault has a coin-flip chance of dislodging a landslide into Milford Sound, which will almost certainly set off a tsunami. We know this because it’s happened at least 30 times before. Beneath the black water, the seabed is coated in layers of debris that used to belong to the mountains. The peaks are still scarred where the rock split and fell. When part of a mountain topples into a fiord, what happens? Think of Archimedes in the bath. “If you drop a million tonnes of rock into the water, a million tonnes of water is going to try and get out,” says the University of Canterbury’s Tom Robinson, an expert in disaster risk, especially landslides triggered by earthquakes. A tsunami isn’t good news anywhere, but a fiord is a particularly bad place to have one. The size of the wave would depend roughly on how far a landslide fell and the depth of the water it struck, and in Milford, a rock avalanche could tumble 1000 metres into water only 300 metres deep. These proportions are not in our favour. |
MORE STORIES ABOUT DISASTER RESILIENCE: |
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Photographer of the Year Exhibition is open—and it's freeThe finalists for 2024 are printed in large-format and available for viewing in the atrium under the Westpac Building in Britomart Precinct, Auckland. The 15 Portrait finalists, are on vertical display panels around the pavilions in the same area. Each has been judged for its photographic brilliance, but now it’s your turn to tell us which images resonate most with you. Visit the exhibition or vote for five of your favourites for the People’s Choice award online... |
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MYCOLOGY The fungus among usA mycologist on a mission to catalogue all New Zealand’s species of rust has just added another 26 to the list. For Eric McKenzie, the fungal pathogens have been a 55-year passion. Some specimens have been sitting dried and unnamed in Manaaki Whenua—Landcare Research’s fungal collection for decades, but others McKenzie collected himself from shrubs and herbs in bush clearings, high-country grasslands, and islands from the Kermadecs to the subantarctics. The rusts can be quite hard to find, he says. “You’ve got to get down on your hands and knees, stick your bum in the air and crawl around. And then I have to get up again afterwards!” |
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READER EXPEDITIONS The final countdownNew Zealand Geographic and Heritage Expeditions' next reader voyage is a 17 day Melanesian extravaganza, and time is running out to make that booking. SHIP: Heritage Adventurer |
