Our "Discover Ancient Worlds" holiday programme finished this week, with a presentation from the participants of some of their activities and discoveries. Feedback from each of them has been very positive - particularly about the many hands on challenges they were involved with. Here are some examples:



In this picture you can see how to make a vessel float even though it has a hole in the bottom (like the drill ship). The task also required the 'ship' to carry a rock and still float.

We also investigated possible causes of sea level change. Here the participants are heating water whilst measuring the resulting thermal expansion.

This test was to find out the effect on sea level of melting ice caps compared to melting sea ice or ice shelves.

On one of our days we went to drill our own sediment core from Petone Wharf.

Alison Ballance from Radio New Zealand and Michael Kopp from Central Community Newspapers came along to see what we were up to.

Back in the laboratory we split open the core and identified some layering as well as a variety of shells. Each of the participants took samples.

The samples were then studied to look for microfossils and other features.

All in all it has been a great week for the GNS scientists to have some involvement with young enthusiasts. Listen out for the audio account on Our Changing World on New Zealand National Radio soon!

Ocean Drilling science holiday programme

The JOIDES Resolution drill ship is back in Wellington after spending the last two months recovering sediment cores from off the east coast of the South Island. The photo shows the ship being loaded with fresh supplies in the Port of Wellington.

The expedition was very successful, with several holes being drilled, one of which was over 1900 metres deep. This is the deepest individual core drilled so far by the JOIDES Resolution. All of the rock retrieved has generated thousands of samples for analysis. In a few days the ship will depart for another trip, this time close to the coast of Antarctica.

Check out the TV3 news video here.

Also have a look at our own GNS video about the drilling programme:

GNS Science is running a 7 day holiday programme for school students that is investigating the science of ocean floor geology.

The students were amongst a priveleged few New Zealanders allowed to visit the ship today. They were able to ask all sorts of questions of a number of scientists and technicians.

Young scientist Thomas Seaton is admiring the
drill teeth that cut through the solid rock of the ocean floor.

Imaging specialist Bill Crawford explains the process for making high resolution digital images of the rock cores.

Richard Levy of GNS Science and Christian Ohneiser of Otago University explain how the cores are analysed in the on board laboratory.

Thanks to Victoria University, Capital E and the Museum of City and Sea for their collaboration with the Holiday Programme.

Caves and Moa Bones

Takaka limestone landscape

On a recent trip up Takaka Hill near Nelson, I went exploring over the limestone landscape with my daughter Sophie (with permission from the landowner). The area is riddled with sink holes and caves. The most well known is Harwood's Hole - a huge vertical shaft about 50 metres across and over 180 metres deep. However most of them are much smaller - many only a few metres deep and blocked with debris.

Moa Trap - the cave entrance

In this second picture you can see a typical example. A small cave entrance half concealed by vegetation. Inside it, a few metres from the surface and half buried in the clay floor Sophie discovered a moa bone . With a bit of digging we eventually uncovered a variety of bones from several individual skeletons. They were jumbled up with blocks of rockfall debris and many of them were covered in a thick layer of white cave deposit (calcite). This showed that they were likely to be pre - ice age (at least 70 thousand years old) as it takes a long time for the bones to become coated in this way.

Finding a moa bone

There were once atleast 9 species of moa in New Zealand, although only two of them were common on Takaka Hill. The limestone pot holes were a death trap for many that fell in and were unable to escape.

The bone that Sophie is holding in the picture is a lower leg bone (metatarsus).

If you would like to see the bones, they are now resident in Ngarua Cave. This is a very worthwhile show cave that has beautiful formations as well as other Moa remains found previously. I can definately recommend a visit if you are passing over the hill some time!