04 November 2024 Research highlights how earthquakes continue to alter the West Coast landscape

Lincoln University's Associate Professor Peter Almond collaborated with researchers Kelvin Berryman, Pilar Villamor, Stuart Read, Brent V. Alloway and Philip Tonkin to examine when the West Coast gentle sloping habitable land on the seaward side of the Alpine Fault formed and how it will continue to be altered by large earthquakes.

This study was recently published in Earth Surface Processes and Landforms and is featured here in a story on the AF8 website.

Magnificent mountains with precipitous snowy peaks may be what Te Tai Poutini, the West Coast of Te Waipounamu, the South Island of Aotearoa, is most famous for. But the flatter land at the foot of the mountains is what’s most valuable to residents, farmers, and travellers of the West Coast. 

A paper by Kiwi earth scientists highlights the landscape changes expected for this precious, habitable land after large earthquakes.

Habitable corridor

Between the Southern Alps and the Tasman Sea there’s only a narrow stretch of accessible and fertile land on which coasters live and make a living. Any road tripper travelling between Greymouth and Haast can observe the sharp change in slope between the steep flanks of the main range and the gently sloping lowlands that accommodate the towns, roads, and farms of the West Coast.

The change in slope marks the meeting of the Pacific and Australian tectonic plates. Better known as the Alpine Fault, the demarcation in the landscape shows us clearly which side of the fault has been uplifted in earthquakes to form mountains (the southeast side) and which has not (the northwest, seaward side). So how and when did the gently sloping land on the seaward side of the Alpine Fault form? 

To read the full story on AF8, click here >>>.