In February this year, our car trip around the South Island included a drive north along State Highway One from Christchurch to Kaikoura and then on to Picton to catch the car ferry across Cook Strait to Wellington. It was after our visit to the limestone landscapes around Duntroon that we made our way to Kaikoura, a small coastal tourist town. There we took a whale-watching boat trip during which we saw a sperm whale (a great sight!) and hundreds of dolphins diving and leaping about (an unforgettable sight!). The photos below were taken by Petra:
After the whale and dolphin sightseeing, we walked along the Kaikoura foreshore near our motel and collected a number of stones for future polishing. The next day, we continued our drive north, stopping after about 25 kms at Ohau Point to view seals on the rocks below the road and to walk inland up a stream to a small freshwater pool below a waterfall which is known as a seal pup nursery.
The seal pup pool was empty when we visited (click on the link below and then click to start the video to see a short video clip of seal pups in the pool).
Nine months later, on Monday 14 November, just after midnight, I felt the bed shaking lightly but persistently for what seemed to be quite a long time. I realised that an earthquake was occurring somewhere in New Zealand, some distance away, and that it was likely to be a big one. It turned out to be a magnitude 7.8 earthquake. Its epicentre was about 15 kilometres north-east of Culverden in Canterbury, and 60 kilometres south-west of Kaikoura, at a depth of 15 kilometres. The earthquake ruptured on multiple fault lines in a complex sequence that lasted for more than one minute. It was New Zealand’s second largest earthquake in recorded history, though only two fatalities have been associated with it. Its impact on Kaikoura has been devastating. Multiple very large landslides occurred along the coast, burying parts of State Highway One and the railroad track, and portions of seabed near Kaikoura were lifted at least two metres along the shore. Click the link below and then click to start the video for brief video footage of uplifted beach.
Source = Stuff Report
Massive landslides caused by the earthquake and its multiple aftershocks appear to have wiped out the seal breeding ground at Ohau Point, just weeks before the start of pupping season.
It was fortunate timing, however, as many would have been out at sea feeding at the time. It was unlikely there were pups at the waterfall at the time of the earthquake, according to a Department of Conservation spokesperson. The waterfall was not yet accessible, so it was unclear if it remained intact, but due to the surrounding damage it was unlikely to have survived. “Those seals generally come back to the area where they were born. They’ll go in there and it won’t be like anywhere they recognise before, so they’ll probably just go and breed on other parts of the coast.” A group of University of Canterbury students had been studying the seal colony and hoped to use thermal imaging to check the population. “We’re hoping to get up there within the next couple weeks,” said Dr Sharyn Goldstein, who is supervising the students. “Apparently there has been a big landslide, and at this year they’re pupping and pregnant so it might have quite an effect.” (Source = Another Stuff Report.)
The Kaikoura earthquake lifted long strips of coast out of the sea on Monday morning, in parts as high as two metres. The following are before/after photos of an area about 50 kms north of Kaikoura town (source):
The uplift of the by the earthquake has stranded many crayfish and paua (a shell fish).
See this Stuff Report for more, and see The Spinoff for a discussion of the coastal uplift along the Kaikoura shore.
As a beach-stone collector and polisher, it is sobering to see the forces and processes at work that produce the rocks and the coasts that we spend time at when pursuing this hobby.
