"Hairy Mary" at last!

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Our first night in the Maui went well though tonight we are going to set the bed up before it gets dark and definitely before any wine! Slept well and woke at 7.30 ready for the "main" event - the Alpine Fault at Hare Mare Creek.

This is an iconic place as it was in this creek that Harold Wellman first identified the Alpine Fault - a major displacement of the crust that runs across New Zealand. This was in 1942 - well before plate tectonic theory. We now know that this fault to be a "strike slip" fault with horizontal movement similar to the San Andreas fault. Movement on the fault has been measured up to 700 km horizontally with a vertical movemnt as well. This helped to form the Southern Alps, the sediments of which were once at sea level. As the rocks on both sides of the fault grind past each other the folded schists (regionally metamorphosed mud from the sea floor) are locally pulverised and altered into a green rock (mylonite and gouge - dynamic metamorphism). At Hare Mare Creek and the Waikukupa River nearby, the faults are thrust faults associated with the Alpine Fault movement.

But for me visiting Hare Mare Creek was also particularly important as it ends a chapter in my life. Having taught about the fault for so many years, I promised myself that one day, when I retired, I would visit the place to see for myself.

And today was that day!

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Photos

Hare Mare
Made it at last!

Hare Mare creek
Seen from the Waikukupa Landslip

The green band
Looking along the line of the Alpine Fault picked out by the pulverised zone of green rock.

The green rock
Crushed schist along the line of the Alpine Fault. Dynamic metamorphism has left a mylonite and gouge.

Schist?
Below the hammer - folded mica schist of the Southern Alps:
Above - pulverised schist from the Alpine Fault crush zone.

Comments

[Howard Bartlett]

"The Longest Fault in the world" Wasn't there a TV programme about it a few years ago? Now you are there you lucky..............