Many New Zealanders have felt the shake of an earthquake, and most students are aware of big earthquakes that have become part of New Zealand's recent history. Research shows that students are ...
Shaky New Zealand About 14,000 earthquakes are recorded in and around New Zealand every year. Fortunately, most of them are too small for us to feel at the surface. However, many of us have felt ...
Discover our Planet Earth and Beyond resources for NZ Curriculum levels 1 and 2 and find out why New Zealand is home to so many earthquakes and volcanoes. New Zealand is often called the Shaky ...
When an earthquake occurs, the shockwaves of released energy that shake the Earth and temporarily turn soft deposits, such as clay, into jelly (liquefaction) are called seismic waves, from the ...
The Earth rumbles and a hiss of steam issues from the top of Mt Ruapehu. Are these two events related? Is the earthquake caused by the volcano? Or is the steam caused by the earthquake? Tectonic ...
Base isolation is a technique developed to prevent or minimise damage to buildings during an earthquake. It has been used in New Zealand, as well as in India, Japan, Italy and the USA. A ...
There are many different types of volcanoes around New Zealand. This interactive map shows where the major volcanoes are, the types of volcanoes and various facts such as when they last erupted ...
We can blame plate tectonics for many catastrophes over time – earthquakes, volcanoes, geothermal activity, tsunamis and landslides – while people living on mountain ranges or small islands can ...
What is happening inside this 12,700 km diameter ball we call the Earth? Some of the Earth’s internal architecture is an 'educated guess' (mainly from seismology), because the longest drill we ...
The Earth is an enormous place. There is so much that we don’t yet know about what happens on the surface of the Earth, so how could we possibly know about what happens deep down below the Earth’ ...
Everyone knows what a volcano looks like – isn’t it a steep-sided cone with wisps of ash coming from the top, just like Rangitoto, White Island, Mt Ngāuruhoe or Mt Ruapehu? But what about small ...
The city of Auckland is built on a volcanic field. There are 50 volcanoes within an area of 1,000 square kilometres, forming the hills, lakes and basins of the city. Rangitoto Island was formed ...
Liquefaction is a process that temporarily turns firm ground into a liquid. During the Canterbury earthquakes of September 2010 and February 2011, liquefaction caused silt and fine sand to boil ...
New Zealand has volcanoes stretching from the Bay of Islands down to Otago. Many of our volcanoes are extinct (no longer active), some are dormant (not active but capable of becoming active) and ...
In the South Island of New Zealand, the boundary between the Australian and Pacific tectonic plates can be seen on land. This is unlike the North Island boundary, where a subduction zone is under ...
Isn’t it funny to think that the Earth is moving! If we stand perfectly still and look into the distance, the Earth appears to be perfectly still, too. But the Earth is actually moving in many ...
We live in a very exciting country. A day’s drive in a car can take us from snowy mountains, past geysers and hot mud pools to white, sandy Pacific beaches. Have you ever wondered why New Zealand ...
A look at some of the historical aspects of earthquakes, find out how our understanding of what causes earthquakes has changed. 1705 – A discovery by Robert Hooke Robert Hooke realised that ...
Seismic engineering is a branch of engineering that searches for ways to make structures, such as buildings and bridges, resistant to earthquake damage. Seismic engineers aim to develop building ...
The high temperatures (900C) and extremely high pressures that occur in the mantle layer of the Earth are enough to melt rock. The high pressure changes the rock into a viscous semisolid called ...
The Auckland Volcanic Field covers around 360 square kilometres under Auckland city. It includes 49 separate volcanoes, each of which is considered extinct. However the field as a whole remains ...
This animated video shows the movement of the tectonic plates that make up the Earth’s crust. Starting 600 million years ago, watch continents form and break apart as the plates move. Pangaea the ...
New Zealand gets lots of earthquakes every year. Some earthquakes are very strong. Scientists study earthquakes to keep us and our important buildings safe. Point of interest The black and white ...
An earthquake near Christchurch in September 2010 started a chain of events still being felt years later. It caused extensive damage to property, and aftershocks also caused injury and loss of ...
