Laura Wallace, University of Texas Institute for Geophysics
Tuesday 30 June 2015 at 7:30pm
National Aquarium of New Zealand, Marine Parade Napier
The Hikurangi subduction zone is where the Pacific Plate dives down or “subducts” beneath the eastern North Island. The boundary between the eastern North Island and the Pacific Plate is called the Hikurangi megathrust. In this pressentation, Laura Wallace will discuss “slow slip events”, which are an exciting new form of fault slip behavior observed on the Hikurangi megathrust beneath the Hawkes Bay, Gisborne, Kapiti, and Manawatu regions.
Slow slip events beneath the North Island also have important implications for our understanding of the earthquake and tsunami hazard posed by the Hikurangi megathrust. The talk will also introduce a recent international scientific investigation of slow slip events and earthquakes offshore Gisborne that involved the deployment of 35 seafloor instruments belonging to the United States and Japan. The instruments were deployed between May 2014 and June 2015 to monitor seismicity and seafloor deformation related to slow slip beneath Poverty Bay.
Dr. Laura Wallace is a Research Scientist at the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics. Prior to joining the University of Texas, Laura was a research scientist at GNS Science in Lower Hutt for nearly a decade.
Laura is one of the scientists from the research vessel “The Roger Revelle” that is doing seismic work on our coast.
Laura uses a variety of methods to investigate deformation of the Earth’s crust at tectonic plate boundaries, with a particular focus on subduction zone plate boundaries. She undertakes research at various locations in the western Pacific, and she has spent much of her career trying to better understand earthquake processes on the Hikurangi subduction zone beneath the eastern North Island.
Much of her recent work has been focused on investigating “slow slip events”, a recently discovered form of fault slip behavior, which are now known to occur frequently on Hikurangi subduction zone.
Members and friends are inviited to this National Aquarium of New Zealand Lecture
Admission: Gold coin donation
Please direct any enquiries to carol@nationalaquarium.co.nz
Jeffery Tallon CNZM, FRSNZ, HonFIPENZ is Professor of Physics at Robinson Research Institute, Victoria University of Wellington. He is internationally known for his research and discoveries in high-temperature superconductors (HTS), both fundamental and applied, leading eventually to commercialization through the company HTS-110 Ltd. His research has focused on the thermodynamics, magnetism, spectroscopy and electronic transport properties of superconductors.
Palaeontologist and writer Dr Phil Manning is Professor of Natural History at the University of Manchester and Director of the Interdisciplinary Centre of Ancient Life. Phil has appeared in and presented many television documentaries for the BBC, Discovery and History Channels, and is currently filming two new documentaries to be released later this year.
Paleontology is the science of fossils. Like all science, it is concerned with discovery and interpretation of the world (and universe) around us. For paleontology, that discovery starts in the layers of rock exposed on mountainsides and in river beds, where we find fossils that have been preserved and hidden for millions to hundreds of millions of years. Fossils are an incredible source of knowledge and understanding: from them we learn about the unique history of life on this planet, the wonderful coincidence of conditions that makes life possible, and the terrifying events that have destroyed life. We also learn about climate change, sea-level rise, earthquakes, tsunamis, and the fossil fuels that sustain our society. In this talk I will try to convey the excitement (and hazards!) of initial fossil discovery, and then give a tour through the sorts of scientific discoveries that follow.
