There was plenty of chatter going on at our club meeting on Wednesday with 37 attending. It was great to see Sue Walbran again and to have two more guests attending, Lynsee Fowler (guest of Tim Pankhurst) and Rotarian Heather Lucas (guest of Nicole Barker). Heather has moved back to Wellington from Taranaki and is looking to transfer from the New Plymouth North Rotary Club - hopefully to Port Nich.

 

A small group met afterwards to initiate plans for marking our 30^th anniversary later in the year. The committee will be able to update members following their next meeting on 13 February.

 

Please remember to register and pay for the Goal Setters’ Award breakfast meeting on Thursday 7 March. Tickets $60pp should be paid into the Club account no 03-0502-0132476-000 referencing your name and Goal Setters.

 

Whatever you have planned for Waitangi Day - ENJOY!

See you on the 13^th February.

 

 

Our very own Geoff Smith talked to us about his current role with GNS Science - setting up a programme of work ascertaining the NZ hazards and the risk management of these.   The goal is to enable and inform the public, communities and businesses about improved responses to hazards, better decision making and recovery plans.  The expectation is that this will be delivered to Councils, EQC and Insurers.  Delivery is expected to have effective early warning of earthquakes and hazard risk forecasts.  This is also expected to improve the Governments risk governance.

 

The scope of this work is very interesting.  NZ is sitting on the Zealandia continent which broke away from Australia.  We are effectively a couple of mountainous ranges sitting up out of the ocean.  One side of NZ is on the Pacific Plate which is going under the plate that Australia sits on but the two also twist somehow like two pages of A4!

 

The Alpine fault of the south island has been inactive for 305 years and estimates are that this fault will rupture every 300 years!  GNS is predicting there could be a mega thrust which would elevate the sea bed and there could be undersea landslides. 

 

Geoff outlined that the Hikurangi fault off the east coast of NZ is active and could produce a tsunami travelling toward the coast at 800 km per hour. In addition there are undersea volcanoes and these produce chimneys that could erupt and cause tsunamis.   An interesting aside - the chimneys can be made of lithium, gold and cooper but it might take some getting to!

 

Water is an essential resource and knowing where water is will be vital to recoveries from hazards.  80% of NZ’s water is stored in the ground.  The work is to find out where the aquifers are, how much water is in them and what pollution could be happening to contaminate the water.  Maps are being produced to show 2D, 3D and even 4D pictures to determine where and how deep but also how these change over time.  The map is called a QMAP.  Ultimately the goal is to achieve government policy that makes sure NZ water use is sustainable.   I could have listened to Geoff for hours on these topics as I find our hazardous mother nature fascinating.  I am really pleased there a bunch of scientists trying to work her out so that we all can identify hazards and not build houses/schools etc next to them!

 

Thank you Geoff for sharing this with us - we look forward to Government Policy and EQ warnings in particular.