Media Releases and News

New Zealand scientists are leading an international team in a study of New Zealand rocks and fossils to try and find out what killed the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.

Ground-movement data from New Zealand earthquakes dating back 30 years is now available on CD-ROM.

Movement during a big earthquake near Antarctica two days ago was horizontal which meant there was little likelihood of a tsunami, a seismologist said today.

A landslide at the Golden Cross Mine at Waihi, on the east coast of New Zealand's North Island, is one of the most thoroughly studied and most comprehensively monitored landslides in the world.

A potentially large gas field off the North Island's Wairarapa coast may be big enough to warrant serious exploration, a geologist's report says.

A group of international scientists visiting New Zealand this week have cast doubt on accepted views about the lifespan of some commercial fish species.

New satellite receivers on the side of Mt Ruapehu can measure changes in the shape of the mountain as small as a centimetre and may eventually help in forecasting eruptions, French and New Zealand scientists say.

When it comes to tough environments, Mt Ruapehu's Crater Lake is harsher than most. Temperatures get down to minus 10 degrees Celsius in winter and the water in the Crater Lake is about pH1, or similar to battery acid.

Scientists preparing to explore the ocean floor to the ocean floor to the north east of New Zealand believe it could represent the most exciting mineral prospect since gold was first discovered in New Zealand.

Residents of Whiteman's Valley, 30km north of Wellington, need not pack up and leave just because an active fault has been discovered running through the valley, a geologist says.