Hochstetter Lecture: Kaikōura earthquake – Tales from the seafloor
In November 2016, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake dramatically struck the coastal region of Kaikōura, indelibly impacting the residents of the region, changing the very shape of the coast and land, and generating a devastating tsunami.
But what happened offshore? Did the seafloor respond in a similarly dramatic fashion? What are the effects 6 years later and how can we use the earthquake triggered deposits to understand past and future hazards?
In this talk, I will use exceptional novel seafloor data and state-of-the-art techniques to show the devastation wrought on the seafloor by the Kaikōura earthquake. I will use the sedimentary deposits that resulted from the earthquake to build a narrative of the physical and biogenic processes in the minutes, hours, and years following the earthquake. I will reflect on how we can use these exceptionally “geologically young” deposits to unravel past cataclysmic natural hazards to help us better understand the interconnections between the land, people, and ocean floor in the future.
About the speaker
The 2023 Geoscience Society of New Zealand Hochstetter Lecturer is Dr Lorna Strachan (University of Auckland). Lorna is a leading Aotearoa-New Zealand researcher who uses sedimentological observations to disentangle physical processes in the deepest depths of the ocean. In the last decade she has worked on both modern and ancient marine sedimentary systems around Aotearoa. As such, Lorna is one of our rare specialists whose work simultaneously bridges terrestrial outcrops and deep ocean deposits. She seeks to understand far-reaching physics-based sedimentary processes that operate on continental slopes, basin plains, and ultimately deep ocean sinks.
Livestream
This lecture will be livestreamed via Zoom at the link below:
