ONCE UNDER THE WAVES

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 144, 19 June 1936, Page 4

ONCE UNDER THE WAVES

NEr ZEALAND ALPS ;, ■■. ■■-■~ .'..■ '■ •■. i GEOLOGIST'S ADDRESS "What are now the summits of the Southern Alps were once the seashores of primitive New Zealand," said Dr. P. Marshall, M.A., D.Sc., F.G.S., in opening an address to members, of the New Zealand Alpine Club last night on the way in which the New.Zealand mountains were formed. Dr. S. M. Moir presided. ' - - ■ ■ ■ • ■

Dr. Marshall said, that the high Southern Alps were laid down as sand deposited on the seashore or actually under the surface of the sea. Pressure subsequently, consolidated the sand and forced it up into great waves of the earth's crust.

The New Zealand Alps, said Dr. Marshall, were laid down probably four hundred to five hundred millions years ago, but it was difficult to determine their ages because of the absence of fossils. .The sand-made rocks were gradually raised by tremendous- pressure, due to the gradual cooling of the earth, which caused the outer skin of rock to contract and wrinkle into the great mountain ranges. As the rocks of the Alps were raised they were acted upon by the weather and by the erosion of tremendous glaciers.

FORMATION OF COLD LAKES. The cold lakes of New Zealand were not formed by catastrophic action, by the sudden sinking of part of the earth's crust, but were gouged out by huge glaciers, which also cut the steepsided, flat-bottomed valleys of Fiordland, and the actual fiords themselves. When the sea invaded the valleys where glaciers had been, sounds and fiords were formed. In conclusion, Dr. Marshall said that mountains were not formed, as used popularly to be thought, by volcanic action. They were huge masses of the earth's crust formed by tremendous pressure in contraction. A number of interesting lantern slifles were shown, including one of a petrified forest, now washed by the waves, that grew in New Zealand four hundred millions years ago.