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Trip To New Zealand posted by Ben on 05 Jan 2005 |
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Travelling around New Zealand is an adventure itself. You don't just worry about making it from place to place, there is so much to see in between. The roads out of cities are two lane roads that wind through the country side where sheep numbers reach 25 million at the time, and around mountain ranges with some of the most breathtaking scenery... |
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New Years posted by Ben on 02 Jan 2005 |
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I think this has been my first warm New Years, temperature speaking. I spent it in Queenstown, the adventure capital of New Zealand. It’s a beautiful town sitting right on the flanks of the Southern Alps, east of the Fjordland National Park, and it borders Lake Wakatipu.
While I was there, I stayed at the Hippo Lodge, a nice cozy backpacker’s motel... |
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View from space of ocean floor around New Zealand.
The turquoise area is a narrow strip of shallow (<2000 m) ocean also known as the continental margin. |
Although viewed by most as remote, removed, and perilous, the oceans are home to a world of deep beauty and are a great source of food and other natural resources (e.g., oil). In addition, they are a fascinating place to recreate and explore. Exploration and examination of the oceans is critical to finding new resources and learning about Earth history (and possibly the future). Furthermore, the oceans, which cover over two-thirds of the planet’s surface, are a processing factory for materials draining from land. |
| Ocean study is needed to understand how activities and events on land are processed and recorded in the sea, and this is the primary focus of our research in New Zealand. This research is funded by the Source to Sink - MARGINS program of the National Science Foundation.
Why the Waipaoa River in New Zealand?
Unlike the eastern coast of the United States (e.g., North Carolina) which has a broad coastal plain, many coastlines around the world have rugged mountains immediately next to the sea and lack bodies of water (e.g. Pamlico Sound) between rivers and the ocean. The northeast coast of New Zealand, where the Waipaoa River enters the sea, is one example. In these settings, materials from land can be rapidly transported to the ocean, and as a result sediments and dissolved material may quickly accumulate on the ocean floor and affect ocean ecosystems after river flooding. Also, the Waipaoa River discharges an incredible amount of sediment for a river its size. This is because of high rainfall in the area and its easily eroded landscape, which is made of sedimentary rocks. In fact, the Waipaoa River is more than 10 times smaller than the Potomac River but discharges 100 times more sediment!
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