The Jurassic fossil forest of Curio Bay today lies almost at the southern tip of New Zealand’s South Island. In the Jurassic, you could have walked from Curio Bay to what is now Australia and Antarctica (Dinosaurs may have done just that). We know from… Read more
All posts tagged “Gondwana”
Deciduous Conifers in New Zealand’s Jurassic Fossil Forest at Curio Bay
As you pull up in the car park above the fossil forest at Curio Bay (Pole 1999, 2001, 2004, 2009), there is a wonderful patch of living, native forest, just behind. Its conifers, like all New Zealand conifers today, are evergreen. But what of Curio… Read more
How Tall were the trees in New Zealand’s Jurassic Fossil Forest at Curio Bay?
At Curio Bay near the southernmost point of New Zealand’’s South Island, you can walk around the remains of a Jurassic fossil forest. Tree stumps are still in their growth position, and fossilised logs criss-cross through the sandstone overlying them. So can we add these… Read more
New Zealand’s Hawks Crag Breccia – prelude to the drift from Gondwana
The New Zealand road network has some seriously quirky idiosyncrasies – little things we locals take for granted, but can cause some alarm to the ever-increasing number of tourists. There are, for example, hundreds of ‘one lane’ bridges. And about these, I was once asked,… Read more
The Biggest Tree Stump in the Curio Bay Jurassic Forest
Back in the late 1980s I had the pleasure of meeting the English scientist David Bellamy. Bellamy was famous at the time as ‘The Botanic Man’, and he was in New Zealand to film for ‘Moa’s Ark’, a TV series and book about the development of… Read more
Almost a Holocaust – the latest Triassic, Pollock Road, New Zealand
What a difference nearly thirty years makes. In 1986 the Prof of Geology at Otago University showed me some recently collected plant fossils and asked to me to “confirm they are Jurassic”. The fossils had been collected by Steve Cournane, while he was mapping for his… Read more
Beetroot with your Peanut Butter and Marmite? The basic geological structure of New Zealand
New Zealand must be one of the best places on the planet for geology. We are famous among tourists for having so much variety of landscape in such a small area – you don’t have to drive far to see something totally different. This goes… Read more
The Origin of New Zealand in Deep-Time
Anyone who knows anything about New Zealand geology will know that it was once ‘part of Gondwana’. This is true, but how did it become a ‘part’? This is the origin of New Zealand in ‘deep time’. The question was addressed by researchers Li and… Read more
Continental Déjà Vu – the Great Escarpments (Australia, Brazil, South Africa)
Most Australians and many tourists will be aware of a prominent topographic feature not too far from the east coast. For example, the Blue Mountains are a nice day trip from Sydney, while nearly two and a half thousand kilometres to the north, a visitor… Read more