Geo Radio - Waitaki Whitestone Geopark

Listen here to Gareth Boyt - the Waitaki District Council Biodiversity Advisor to learn about biodiversity!

Listen here to learn all about Soil your undies Otago community event that Sasha recently attended.  

Listen to how the Victorians used local stone in construction and how the stone fits into the story of Zealandia.

Recently a journalist from the New Zealand Herald spent some time in the Geopark.  Read all about her experiences at https://www.whitestonegeopark.nz/media  The title of the article is "New Zealand road trip - discover the power of Waitaki" Visit the Waitaki and Oamaru Visitor Centre to discover more of the Geopark.

The Geopark now has a space in the Waitaki and Oamaru Visitor Centre.  Visit Thurs through Monday 10am until 4pm to learn more about the Geopark. 

Listen to the outline of this event that happend Saturday 17 October. 

The team from the Waitaki Whitestone Geopark recently visited the Field Day in Palmerston and the Community Gardens Abundance of Spring event. 

Ride the Alps 2 Ocean Cycle Trail and explore the Waitaki Whitestone Geopark at the same time!

Listen here to discover how these rocks were formed. Please note, the pop-up shop is now closed.

Listen here to find out about live streamed public talks.

Our geoeducator visits a school to talk about the geology of Oamaru.

Check out www.whitestonegeopark.nz for more information and follow us on facebook. Please do contact us if you would like us to visit your community group to give a presentation on the Geopark and the stories the rocks tell with regards to the formation of Zealandia.

Our public talk in July was a huge success with Brian Miller talking about Zealandia as well as the Oamaru volcano.  After the talk a number of people walked from the Oamaru library (where the talk was held) to the Geopark pop-up shop to look at resources there and to ask any questions they may have.

The Waitaki River has been identified as a geosite.  Listen to this podcast to learn some amazing features of this very special braided river.

There is alot to do in and around Moeraki, including:  Te Kaihinaki (Moeraki Boulders) Katiki - where you can see kekeno (fur seals) and hoiho (yellow-eyed penguins),  and the Moeraki Peninsula at the end of the Millenium Track and where there are information boards about the history of early Maori in the area and whaling activities.  

Come along to the Oamaru Library in Thames St on Thursday 16th July 2020 at 6 - 7pm to hear Brian Miller talk on the following topics: "What is a Geopark and why is the Waitaki District special? The formation of New Zealand and the discovery of Zealandia How an undersea volcano created the Victorian town of Oamaru"

The Geopark recently installed interpretation panels at Elephant Rocks near Duntroon.   These explain how the Elephant Rocks were formed.

Podcast summary: An orogeny is a mountain building process.   The Kaikoura Orogeny is the mountain building process that started 25 million years ago when movement along the Pacific and Indo-Australian Plates began their uplift.  Continential crust thickened and eventually around 5 million years ago the Southern Alps were uplifted.   This mountain building phase continues today.

Podcast summary: The Pacific Ring of Fire is known as the area around the edges of the Pacific tectonic plate where there is concentrated earthquake and volcanic activity.   These earthquakes and volcanoes happen as a result of the Pacific Plate crashing against, subducting beneath and sliding against neighbouring tectonic plates. In New Zealand, the Pacific Ring of Fire is where the Pacific...

May 2020 Radio announcer: Time to talk Geopark once again. Joined by Geo educator Sasha Morriss. Sasha, still working from home at the moment. Geoeducator: That's right, yes, I'm still working remotely. Radio announcer: But you've been really active and busy, I guess. Geoeducator: Oh, yeah. Look, it's been a really good opportunity for us just to develop a lot more online resources. So we've got a...

....Geoeducator: So we've got an activity there that's actually a puzzle. So let me start at the beginning. Long time ago, back in the Triassic, which is very long time ago. We're talking, you know, 200 odd million years ago, there was a continent called Pangea. Now Pangea was the land masses of the world and then that separated up into two separate supercontinents. There's Laurasia, which is most...

Sasha Says - Website and Diatomites Real Radio: Time to talk Geopark. Joined as usual by the Geoeducator Sasha Morriss. Sasha, what are we talking about this week? Geoeducator: Hi, Dan. Yeah, this week I'd just like to talk a little bit about our Web site that we are continuously updating at the moment. Now, the Web site for people that don't know is www.whitestonegeopark.nz. Now on the web site y...

Sasha Says volcanoes and updates on Geosites 30 April 2020 Geoeducator: So I've been working on some activities to do with volcanoes this last week. So people may be aware that we have a number of very very old volcanoes in the Waitaki Whitestone Geopark. I guess the most prominent ones will be the one at Oamaru here. So that's at the Cape. So that was around 35, 40 million years ago that that had...

Sasha Says - Geopark and Geosites 21 April 2020 Radio announcer: Time to talk Geopark. Joined on the line as usual from home by Sasha our geoeducator. How are you doing today Sasha? Geoeducator: Very well, thank you Dan. How you? Radio announcer: Yeah, awesome, awesome. Surviving in the bubble. But really keen to explore more of the district, particularly from a Geopark perspective when we get out...

Geoeducator: Ok, so if you head onto our website. That's www.whitestonegeopark.nz. You'll see there's a whole lot of sections in there. If you head to the 'learn' section you'll see there's a kids corner. Follow that link and - I'll just run through all the various activities we've got there for children who are looking for things to do with a bit of an educational bent on it. So we've got, a colo...