IMPORTANT NEW EVIDENCE

Evening Post, Volume CIII, Issue 151, 29 June 1922, Page 8

IMPORTANT NEW EVIDENCE

TWO FAULT CRACKS

SIGNS OF SUBSIDENCE OF GROUND.

An interesting, report on some special features of the earthquake district of Taupo has been supplied to Professor E. Marsden, by Messrs. R. H. Ward and J. F. Stenberg, whom he commissioned to go over parts of the district and search for faults. They state that they travelled from Taupo along the track to Whakaipo, which, running first west, then south, and then west again, reaches the eastern end of the Whakaipo Beach at a point where the Mapara Stream runs into Lake Taupo. This point is about six.miles west of Taupo. Mr. Ward, who is a son of Colonel Waa-d, of Tauranga^ a well-known seismologist, is a keen and enthusiastic observer, and knows the district well. Id ihis letter he says ; "After crossing the hille and following the southward turn ■for about one mile, we found a beautiful fault, crossing the track, direction approximately north-south. This fault is ithe one'which. McCarthy and Grace told a (Auckland) Herald reporter about. We followed it about fifty yards, but did not have time to trace it farther—Grace's account states that it can be traced a rcouple of miles. "The crack has opened horizontally at the top an average width of twelve iniches at least; it seems to average two to if our feet in depth as far as we could see. The western side of the crack has subisided consistently all along the fault,, leaving a clean break. The depth of the 'step' caused by the subsidence averages at least eighteen inches; we measured it with a two-foot rule in various places. It was as mucb as two feet in some ■places, but eighteen inches is a good average. . . . W® were quite enthus: dastic at finding this fault; it is, I think, the sort of fracture you wanted to find. ' "Following the track till it turned J westward, we came to several small cracks. These ran east-west approxi- j mately. They are only cracks—no subsidence—width from three-quarters of an j inch to one inch. Some of them we could, I trace for thirty yards, but did not have time to get off the horses and look round in the scrub. These cracks, Mr. Stenberg says, are of course much larger than the ones you saw at Oruanui. Mr. Richardson told us that these small eastwest cracks have been formed since Saturday last, as they were not there when he was over there on that day. About three hundred yards east of Mr. Napier's house there is a large fault running in the same direction as the large one we first came to, that is, northsouth.' There is here also a subsidence on the western side of this fault, but only averaging about three inches. The crack is only open an average width of a couple of inches. We did not have time to trace this inland, but it appears | to continue a good distance. Mr. Richardson tells us when he saw this one on Saturday he followed it right out to the beach; now, of course, the wavea caused by the strong westerly wind have obliterated it on the beach. This fault is, like the first one, a genuine (though smaller) subsidence on the western side; it is not a mere landslip, being on level ground. "With regard to the reported" subsidence of the beach in this western corner of the bay near Mr. Napier's house, there is certainly a subsidence here, because the water -is up higher on the rocks than when I saw this place early in December last, and I satisfied myself that the lake level generally is considerably lower than it then was. That is to say, the land here must have subsided, perhaps only three to six inches, but as there is no sign of any fracture, it is difficult to ascertain. You cannot get along the waterfront here, for it is cliff to the water's edge. Mr. Banks informed me that he reckoned this western side of the bay had subsided for some distance out from the corner where Mr. Napier's J house is. . . . Perhaps there has been a 'tilt' of the western shore of the bay here; anyway, we saw no fracture here. "Looking along this western side of the bay from near Mr. Napier's house, I noticed that there are a good number of large slips, which are quite new, and therefore must have been caused by the shakes. ... , , , . "This region has evidently been well shaken. I noticed that a chimney cap on Mr. Napier's house has been shifted to the southward about two inches; no damage, however, of any sort. We felt a. good shake at 3.17 p:m., just when leaving, Mr. Napier's House on the return trip; the rumble appeared to come from the northward approximately. ... I am glad to say that we're haying a great time to-night (Tuesday), Mir. Rogers is getting- some Al records'!" ,