New Value
NIWA reveals seabed treasures
Thursday, September 17, 2009
For the first time Cook Strait seafloor is revealed in high definition. NIWA underwater imagery shows the vast and complex features of one of the world's most energetic stretches of water.
Cook Strait, between North and South Islands of New Zealand, owes its origins to dynamic geological and oceanographic processes. These include the effects of tectonic plate deformation, such as faulting and subsidence, and the development of a major canyon system that incises New Zealand's eastern continental margin. Cyclical changes in sea-level related to past glaciations and strong tidal currents with flows of up to 10 kilometres per hour have also played their part.
For more than 10 million years, the Strait has been located in a major boundary between the Australian and Pacific plates. It contains deep sedimentary basins, undergoes active faulting, and is characterised by frequent, large magnitude earthquakes. Strong tidal currents have scoured the seafloor across the narrows, and continuously move sediments supplied from land. Enormous canyons, measuring up to 1800 square kilometres in area, are strongly sculptured by generations of bedrock landslides up to 10 cubic kilometres in size.
The offshore data contain more than 125 million individual data points. They were collected between 2001 and 2007 using a multibeam sonar mapping system mounted on the hull of NIWA's deepwater research vessel Tangaroa.
Published by the National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research Ltd
Copyright© All rights reserved
Onshore land representation derived from Land Information New Zealand topographic and the Ministry for the Environment LCDB II digital datasets.
Further information:
Jayne Cooper-Woodhouse
Media Advisor, NIWA
Tel: +64 4 382 1621
Mob: +64 027 5651 308
Cook Strait, between North and South Islands of New Zealand, owes its origins to dynamic geological and oceanographic processes. These include the effects of tectonic plate deformation, such as faulting and subsidence, and the development of a major canyon system that incises New Zealand's eastern continental margin. Cyclical changes in sea-level related to past glaciations and strong tidal currents with flows of up to 10 kilometres per hour have also played their part.
For more than 10 million years, the Strait has been located in a major boundary between the Australian and Pacific plates. It contains deep sedimentary basins, undergoes active faulting, and is characterised by frequent, large magnitude earthquakes. Strong tidal currents have scoured the seafloor across the narrows, and continuously move sediments supplied from land. Enormous canyons, measuring up to 1800 square kilometres in area, are strongly sculptured by generations of bedrock landslides up to 10 cubic kilometres in size.
The offshore data contain more than 125 million individual data points. They were collected between 2001 and 2007 using a multibeam sonar mapping system mounted on the hull of NIWA's deepwater research vessel Tangaroa.
Published by the National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research Ltd
Copyright© All rights reserved
Onshore land representation derived from Land Information New Zealand topographic and the Ministry for the Environment LCDB II digital datasets.
Further information:
Jayne Cooper-Woodhouse
Media Advisor, NIWA
Tel: +64 4 382 1621
Mob: +64 027 5651 308
