EARTHQUAKE DANGER

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22465, 28 July 1938, Page 8

EARTHQUAKE DANGER

♦ “MID-CANTERBURY NOT IMMUNE” GEOLOGIST’S STATEMENT A warning that Mid-Canterbury cannot consider itself immune from the menace of earthquakes is given by Mr R. Speight, in a geological memoir which has just been released by the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. The memoir covers a geological survey of the Mount Somers district, lying between the South Hinds river and the North Ashburton river, and is the first paper dealing with the area published for the last 50 years. The specific reference to the likelihood of earthquakes also carries a warning about ensuring adequate safely for buildings. The paragraph, which is portion of the section of the survey dealing with the fault and fold system of the area, reads: “Judging from the fact that all Tertiaries, including the Kowai gravels, have experienced some folding or warping, it is obvious that the movements continued down to the latest Tertiary times; and from the perfection of some of the fault-scarps the deformation of the beds occurred in the latest geological epoch, if indeed thev did not occur within the human period. There are suggestions of recent earthquake rents in the Mount Somers region, and, taken in conjunction with the occurrence near the Rakaia gorge, only a few miles away, of definite faulting which affects recent gravels as well as of the earthquake rents, this appears to indicate that Mid-Canterbury cannot regard itself as entirely immune from earthquake danger, and precautions concerning the safety of buildings in the district should not be relaxed.” This paragraph is preceded by a long technical explanation of the various folds and faults in the area surveyed. One typical reference is to the deep gorge of Chapman creek, which, cut 700 feet deep with almost vertical walls in the rhyolite of Mount Somers, indicates a pronounced and recent uplift of that great block.