Lost Wonder of the World: Pink and White Travertine Terraces

Pink terraces, near Rotorua, New Zealand. Painting of the terraces done prior to 1886. Image taken from here.

Last week's geology word of the week was travertine. In response to the word of the week, a blog reader named Michael sent me a link to a wikipedia article about the spectacular-- but lost-- pink and white travertine terraces in New Zealand. I had never heard of these terraces before, but I clicked on the link to wikipedia and was immediately awestruck by paintings of these enormous travertine deposits. Intrigued, I began obsessively googling these travertines and found several more paintings and even a few grainy, late 1800s, black-and-white photographs. Often called the lost "Eighth Wonder of the World," these travertines attracted many European tourists back in the 1800s, no easy feat in an age when reaching New Zealand required a long ship voyage.

A Poor Disaster in a Rich Country

With at least 75 people dead and extensive damage throughout the city of Christchurch, the toll of the recent New Zealand earthquake is already a heavy one. A number of factors contributed to make this earthquake so deadly-- the magnitude, the closeness of the epicenter to Christchurch, the shallowness of the epicenter, the time of day, and the fact that much damage from the September 2010 Christchurch earthquake had yet to be repaired.  The death toll and damage caused by the recent earthquake in first world New Zealand is nothing like what occurs when large earthquakes hit third world countries, such as Haiti in January 2010, but for a first world country the destruction is fairly high. 

I hope that New Zealand recovers quickly and that the earth-shaking quiets down long enough for proper rebuilding. A geologist colleague of my fiance is currently in New Zealand, just outside of Christchurch, and he told us, "the place is like a warzone." He's not sure when he'll back able to make it home (to South Africa), but he says he just feels lucky to be alive.

Thinking about the toll of the recent New Zealand earthquake, I was reminded of a post about "rich and poor disasters" that I wrote a few years back for Skepchick. Before I started a geology blog, I used to sporadically blog about geology over at Skepchick. These days, I blog here at Georneys about geology, and I blog over at Skepchick about other skeptical and scientific things, such as why skeptics should be interested in statistics. Occasionally, I will re-post some of my old geology posts from Skepchick. I will also sometimes cross-post on both blogs. The post below originally appeared on Skepchick in 2007 here. New Orleans still hasn't fully recovered from Hurricane Katrina.

I don't want to distract from the all the devastation that recently occurred in New Zealand, but I think Hurricane Katrina is a good example to ponder when considering what factors-- both geologic and socioeconomic--affect the toll of natural disasters and the eventual recovery-- or lack thereof-- of a region from a natural disaster.

A boy bikes past homes unrepaired since Hurricane Katrina, on the eve of the storm's five year anniversary in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans. Image from Reuters: Lee Celano.

A few weeks ago [note: in 2007] I listened to a talk by John Mutter, a geologist at Columbia University. Mutter has two roles at Columbia. First, he is a geophysist in the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory doing traditional research in marine geology and seismology. Second, he is a faculty member in Columbia’s Earth Institute doing research on the links between Earth Science and Social Science.

Some Links and Videos Related to the New Zealand Earthquake

Many geobloggers and news agencies have been reporting on the recent magnitude 6.3 earthquake that occurred in Christchurch, New Zealand about six hours ago. This initial earthquake was quickly followed by two magnitude >5.5 earthquakes.

There has been some incredible damage and the latest report is that at least 65 people have died.

Below are a few links and videos related to the recent earthquake.

Here are some links from the geoblogosphere:
Highly Allochthonous: Magnitude 6.3 earthquake rocks Christchurch

Eruptions: Another sizable earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand

The Landslide Blog: First news of the Mw=6.3 earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand


Here are some links from news agencies:
New Zealand Herald: Updates on fatalities and damage; pictures, and videos

New York Times: Latest update

CNN: Latest update


Finally, here are a few videos, all taken from youtube. Just a warning that some of the footage is graphic and disturbing. These videos show the devastating destruction that results when a large earthquake hits a highly-populated area.

From TV New Zealand:

From  the Associated Press:

From CNN: