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Hochstetter Lecture
The Hochstetter Lecturer (named in honour of Ferdinand von Hochstetter - see below) is chosen annually by the Awards Subcommittee. He or she gives a lecture at GSNZ branches during the year on recently completed and largely unpublished findings, and must have a reputation as a good speaker. Send your 2012 nomination to the Awards committee now!
The 2011 Hochstetter Lecturer is Russ van Dissen from GNS, Lower Hutt. Russ will be touring the country shortly. "It's Our Fault - Better Defining Earthquake Risk in Wellington." The dire and far reaching impacts that earthquakes can have on our nation has never been more clearly demonstrated, and the importance of resilience never more apparent. t's Our Fault is a comprehensive study of Wellington's earthquake risk. Its objective is to position the capital city of New Zealand to become more resilient through an encompassing study of the likelihood of large earthquakes, the effects of these earthquakes, and their impacts on humans and the built environment. The focus of my Hochstetter lecture is a presentation of key results to date which include better definition and constraints on: 1) active faulting in Cook Strait, 2) timing and size of past surface ruptures on the Wellington, Wairarapa, Wairau, and Ohariu faults; 3) current state of locking of the subduction interface; 4) stress interactions between these faults, including modelling of the rupture statistics of the Wellington-Wairarapa fault-pair; 5) conditional probability of rupture of the Wellington, Wairarapa and Ohariu faults; 6) geological, geotechnical, and geophysical parameterization of the near-surface sediments and basin geometry in Wellington City and the Hutt Valley, down to a few hundred metres depth; and 7) characterisation of earthquake ground shaking behaviour in these two urban areas. Work currently underway and/or planned for the near future includes: a) simulation of subduction interface earthquake motions; b) probabilistic liquefaction assessment; c) earthquake loss, and recovery-time estimation; and d) social ramifications.
It's Our Fault has been running for six years, and is jointly funded by New Zealand's Earthquake Commission, Accident Compensation Corporation, Wellington City Council, Wellington Region Emergency Management Group, Greater Wellington Regional Council, and Natural Hazards Research Platform. It's Our Fault investigations, to date, have been the result of collaborative efforts of scientists and engineers from GNS Science, Massey University, NIWA, University of Canterbury, and Victoria University of Wellington.
Itinerary presently known (for more details use the email contacts below)
AUCKLAND: Tuesday, 16th August. Hochstetter Lecture at the Auckland War Memorial Museum Auditorium (southern entrance), 7pm. Please register your interest with Andrea or Greta at Auckland War Memorial Museum, ph 09 306 7923 or email friends.events@aucklandmuseum.com. Lunchtime lecture: "Surface fault rupture, landslides and liquefaction - counting the cost and the need to mitigate." 1-2pm, Geology Building 301, Room 1043, University of Auckland. GSNZ Waikato. Email: apittari_at_waikato.ac.nz
GSNZ Wellington. Email: j.mountjoy_at_niwa.co.nz
GSNZ Auckland. Email: l.strachan_at_auckland.ac.nz
GSNZ Manawatu. Email: J.A.Palmer_at_massey.ac.nz
GSNZ Canterbury. Email: uwe.ring_at_canterbury.ac.nz
GSNZ Otago. Email: andrew.gorman_at_stonebow.otago.ac.nz
GSNZ Taranaki. Email: susan_at_netmail.co.nz
| About Hochstetter by Mike Johnston
Christian Gottlieb Ferdinand von Hochstetter (1829-1884)
Hochstetter was born in Esslingen in the Kingdom of Wurttemberg and joined the Austrian Geological Survey in 1853. Four years later he was appointed geologist on the Austrian frigate Novara that undertook a global scientific cruise. The Novara berthed in Auckland, then the capital of New Zealand, on 22 December 1858. At the request of the New Zealand Government and supported by the Auckland Provincial Council, Hochstetter, accompanied by Julius Haast and others, surveyed the Drury Coal Field to the south of the capital.
This was accomplished so successfully that the provincial council persuaded the commander of the Novara to allow Hochstetter to remain in New Zealand so that he could undertake further work in the province. Over the next five months Hochstetter and Haast, and a support team, visited much of southern part of Auckland Province, including the volcanic region and the gold diggings at Coromandel Harbour.
On completion of his Auckland mapping, Hochstetter was commissioned by the Nelson Provincial Council to report on the mineral wealth of the province. Hochstetter, accompanied by Haast, arrived in Nelson, after brief stops at New Plymouth and Wellington, on 4 August 1859. In Nelson, they examined Dun Mountain, and from which he collected and subsequently named dunite, the Aorere Gold Field and other places of interest. While Hochstetter visited the Wangapeka Gold Field in the west and Lake Roto-it, Haast geologically examined the eastern part of the province . Hochstetter left Nelson for Sydney on 1 October 1859, on the first leg of his return voyage to Europe.
His geological maps of Auckland and Nelson were the first of their kind in New Zealand. |
A list of previous Hochstetter Lecturers can be found on the Awards page
Website editor's note: the "o" in Hochstetter definitely does not carry an umlaut (ö) | |
