1.
Ashburton, New Zealand
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Ashburton is a large town in the Canterbury Region, on the east coast of the South Island of New Zealand. The town is the seat of the Ashburton District, a territorial authority encompassing the town and the rural area. It is 85 kilometres south west of Christchurch and is regarded as a satellite town of Christchurch. Ashburton township has a population of 19,850, with an additional 12,400 living in the wider district, the town is the 23rd largest urban area in New Zealand and the third-largest urban area in the Canterbury Region, after Christchurch and Timaru. Ashburton was named by the surveyor Captain Joseph Thomas of the New Zealand Land Association, after Francis Baring, 3rd Baron Ashburton, the town is laid out around two central squares either side of the railway line and main highway, Baring Square East and Baring Square West. Ashvegas, Ashburtons common nickname, is an allusion to Las Vegas. Ashburton is on State Highway 186 kilometres south of Christchurch, the Main South Line railway line runs through the centre of town, but passenger trains ceased on 10 February 2002. The town is the centre of an agricultural and pastoral farming district and it has one large suburb, Tinwald, south of the town and the Ashburton River. Tinwald was the junction for the now-closed Mount Somers Branch railway line, the town has three other suburbs, Allenton, Hampstead and Netherby. The Ashburton District extends from the Pacific Ocean to the Southern Alps, and from the Rangitata River to the Rakaia River, including the towns of Methven, Mount Somers, on the whole, Ashburton shares a similar climate to Christchurch i. e. a dry temperate climate. However, since it lies further inland at an altitude to Christchurch. During summer Ashburton can exceed 30 °C, whilst winter can see regular frosts, Ashburtons heaviest snowfall was 60 centimetres on 12 June 2006. Ashburton lies in the middle of the fertile alluvial Canterbury Plains which permits agricultural activity such as dairying provided irrigation is used, radio Port FM is based in Timaru, Newstalk ZB and Classic Hits ZEFM are re-broadcast from other out-of-town stations. There is a recreational airport, Ashburton Aerodrome, serving the town. There are seven schools, an intermediate school, a secondary school. All rolls are as of July 2016, Allenton School is a state contributing primary school. It has a roll of 348 students, Ashburton Borough School is a state full primary school. It has a roll of 415 students, Ashburton Christian School is a state-integrated evangelical Christian composite school
2.
Christchurch
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Christchurch is the largest city in the South Island of New Zealand and the seat of the Canterbury Region. The Christchurch urban area lies on the South Islands east coast, just north of Banks Peninsula and it is home to 389,700 residents, making it New Zealands third most-populous urban area behind Auckland and Wellington. The city was named by the Canterbury Association, which settled the province of Canterbury. The name of Christchurch was agreed on at the first meeting of the association on 27 March 1848 and it was suggested by John Robert Godley, who had attended Christ Church, Oxford. Some early writers called the town Christ Church, but it was recorded as Christchurch in the minutes of the management committee of the association, Christchurch became a city by Royal Charter on 31 July 1856, making it officially the oldest established city in New Zealand. The Avon River flows through the centre of the city, with a park located along its banks. At the request of the Deans brothers, the river was named after the River Avon in Scotland, the usual Māori name for Christchurch is Ōtautahi. This was originally the name of a site by the Avon River near present-day Kilmore Street. The site was a dwelling of Ngāi Tahu chief Te Potiki Tautahi. The Ōtautahi name was adopted in the 1930s, prior to that the Ngāi Tahu generally referred to the Christchurch area as Karaitiana, a transliteration of the English word Christian. The citys name is abbreviated by New Zealanders to Chch. In New Zealand Sign Language, the name is the fingerspelled letter C signed twice, with the second to the right of the first. Archaeological evidence found in a cave at Redcliffs in 1876 has indicated that the Christchurch area was first settled by moa-hunting tribes about 1250 CE. These first inhabitants were thought to have followed by the Waitaha tribe. Following tribal warfare, the Waitaha were dispossessed by the Ngati Mamoe tribe and they were in turn subjugated by the Ngāi Tahu tribe, who remained in control until the arrival of European settlers. Their abandoned holdings were taken over by the Deans brothers in 1843 who stayed, the First Four Ships were chartered by the Canterbury Association and brought the first 792 of the Canterbury Pilgrims to Lyttelton Harbour. These sailing vessels were the Randolph, Charlotte Jane, Sir George Seymour, the Charlotte Jane was the first to arrive on 16 December 1850. The Canterbury Pilgrims had aspirations of building a city around a cathedral and college, the name Christ Church was decided prior to the ships arrival, at the Associations first meeting, on 27 March 1848
3.
Canterbury, New Zealand
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Canterbury is a region of New Zealand, located in the central-eastern South Island. The region covers an area of 44,508 square kilometres, the region in its current form was established in 1989 during nationwide local government reforms. The Kaikoura District joined the region in 1992 following the abolition of the Nelson-Marlborough Regional Council, Christchurch, the South Islands largest city and the countrys third-largest urban area, is the seat of the region and home to 65 percent of the regions population. Other major towns and cities include Timaru, Ashburton, Rangiora, in 1848, Edward Gibbon Wakefield, a Briton, and John Robert Godley, an Anglo-Irish aristocrat, founded the Canterbury Association to establish an Anglican colony in the South Island. The colony was based upon theories developed by Wakefield while in prison for eloping with a woman not-of-age, due to ties to the prestigious Oxford University, the Canterbury Association succeeded in raising sufficient funds and recruiting middle-class and upper-class settlers. In April 1850, a group led by Godley landed at Port Cooper—modern-day Lyttelton Harbour—and established a port, housing. In December 1850, the first wave of 750 settlers arrived at Lyttelton in a fleet of four ships, following 1850, the provinces economy developed with the introduction of sheep farming. The Canterbury regions tussock plains in particular were suitable for sheep farming. Since they were valued by settlers for their meat and wool. By the 1860s, this figure had risen to three million, during this period, the architect Benjamin Mountfort designed many civic and ecclesiastical buildings in the Gothic Revival style. The Canterbury Province was formed in 1853 following the passing of the New Zealand Constitution Act 1852 and it was formed from part of New Munster Province and covered the middle part of the South Island, stretching from the east coast to the west coast. The province was abolished, along with provinces of New Zealand. The modern Canterbury Region has slightly different boundaries, particularly in the north and it is New Zealands largest region by area, with an area of 45,346 km2. Canterbury was traditionally bounded in the north by the Conway River, to the west by the Southern Alps, the area is commonly divided into North Canterbury, Mid Canterbury, South Canterbury and Christchurch City. Canterbury is home to 600,100 people according to Statistics New Zealands June 2016,13 percent of New Zealands population and it the most populous in the South Island and the second most populous region in New Zealand. The median age of Canterburys population is 39.9 years, around 15.5 percent of the population is aged 65 or over while 18.7 percent is aged under 15. There are 97.5 males for every hundred females in Canterbury, just under 20 percent of Canterburys population was born overseas, compared to 25 percent for New Zealand as a whole. The British Isles remains the largest region of origin, accounting for 36.5 percent of the population in Canterbury
4.
Hurunui District
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The Hurunui District is a political district on the east coast of New Zealands South Island, north of Christchurch, New Zealand. It forms part of the Canterbury region and stretches from the east coast to the main divide and its land area is 8,660.43 square kilometres. The district had a resident population of 12,700 as of June 2016. Local populations could even recognise the identities of every local Maori or Asian recorded in the census, during the period,1853 to 1876, the area north of the Hurunui River was administrated as part of the Nelson Province. After the abolition of the provinces in 1876 the Amuri and Cheviot counties were formed, in 1989, these counties were merged with the Ashley and Waipara counties to form the present district. The current district mayor is Winton Dalley, who was elected in 2010 upon the retirement of previous mayor Gary Jackson, media related to Hurunui District at Wikimedia Commons Hurunui District Council website
5.
North Otago
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The district of North Otago in New Zealand covers the area of Otago between Shag Point and the Waitaki River, and extends inland to the west as far as the village of Omarama. Prominent rivers include the Shag, the Waianakarua, the Kakanui, the Kakanui Mountains form the principal cordillera, rising at their highest point, Mount Pisgah, to 1,643 metres. These are separated from the lower, parallel Horse Range by the valleys of the Waianakarua. The large east-coast town of Oamaru serves as North Otagos main centre, other towns and settlements in the region include Alma, Maheno, Kakanui, Herbert, Waianakarua, Hampden, and Moeraki, all close to the coast south of Oamaru. The coastal plain north of Oamaru has the settlements of Hilderthorpe, inland settlements include Weston, Ardgowan, Windsor, Five Forks, Peebles, Papakaio, Duntroon, Kurow, Omarama, and Otematata. The area aspired to provincial status in the 19th century, most of its territory belonged to the Waitaki County, and today is officially part of the Waitaki District. Some sense of regional identity survives in support of sport, notably the North Otago rugby team, the rolling, tussock-clad hill country of North Otago provides the important agricultural base, particularly through sheep-farming. The generation of hydro-electricity in the Waitaki Valley has also drawn attention to the area, benmore Peak Observatory website Omarama Gliding Club website World Altitude Record Attempt website
6.
Waitaki River
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It starts at the confluence of the Ohau River and the Tekapo River, now in the head of the artificial Lake Benmore, these rivers being fed by three large glacial lakes, Pukaki, Tekapo, and Ohau. The Waitaki flows through Lake Benmore, Lake Aviemore and Lake Waitaki, the Waitaki has several tributaries, notably the Ahuriri River and the Hakataramea River. It passes Kurow and Glenavy before entering the Pacific Ocean, the median flow of the Waitaki River at Kurow is 356 cubic metres per second. The middle of the bed formed a traditional political boundary between Canterbury and Otago. As such, the term South of the Waitaki is often used to refer to the Otago, the river is popular for recreational fishing and jetboating. In 2001 a proposal for a series of canals and dams was made by Meridian Energy for irrigation and electricity generation on the river. This scheme, known as Project Aqua, planned to divert up to 77 percent of the rivers flow to create a hydroelectric scheme. Lack of commercial viability was given as the reason for the schemes shelving. List of rivers of New Zealand Reservoirs and dams in New Zealand Nordmeyer, Waitaki – The River and its Lakes, The Land and its People. Waitaki Valley website Meridian energy Waitaki hydro scheme Hydrologic webmap of the Waitaki river basin
7.
Quaternary
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Quaternary is the current and most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy. It follows the Neogene Period and spans from 2.588 ±0.005 million years ago to the present, the Quaternary Period is divided into two epochs, the Pleistocene and the Holocene. The informal term Late Quaternary refers to the past 0. 5–1.0 million years, the Quaternary Period is typically defined by the cyclic growth and decay of continental ice sheets driven by Milankovitch cycles and the associated climate and environmental changes that occurred. The term Quaternary was proposed by Giovanni Arduino in 1759 for alluvial deposits in the Po River valley in northern Italy and it was introduced by Jules Desnoyers in 1829 for sediments of Frances Seine Basin that seemed clearly to be younger than Tertiary Period rocks. The Quaternary Period follows the Neogene Period and extends to the present, the Quaternary covers the time span of glaciations classified as the Pleistocene, and includes the present interglacial time-period, the Holocene. This places the start of the Quaternary at the onset of Northern Hemisphere glaciation approximately 2.6 million years ago, Quaternary stratigraphers usually worked with regional subdivisions. From the 1970s, the International Commission on Stratigraphy tried to make a single geologic time scale based on GSSPs, the Quaternary subdivisions were defined based on biostratigraphy instead of paleoclimate. This led to the problem that the base of the Pleistocene was at 1.805 Mya. The ICS then proposed to use of the name Quaternary altogether. The Anthropocene has been proposed as an epoch as a mark of the anthropogenic impact on the global environment starting with the Industrial Revolution. The Anthropocene is not officially designated by the ICS, however, the 2.6 million years of the Quaternary represents the time during which recognizable humans existed. Over this short period, there has been relatively little change in the distribution of the continents due to plate tectonics. The Quaternary geological record is preserved in detail than that for earlier periods. The climate was one of periodic glaciations with continental glaciers moving as far from the poles as 40 degrees latitude, there was a major extinction of large mammals in Northern areas at the end of the Pleistocene Epoch. Many forms such as saber-toothed cats, mammoths, mastodons, glyptodonts, others, including horses, camels and American cheetahs became extinct in North America. Glaciation took place repeatedly during the Quaternary Ice Age – a term coined by Schimper in 1839 that began with the start of the Quaternary about 2.58 Mya and continues to the present-day. In 1821, a Swiss engineer, Ignaz Venetz, presented an article in which he suggested the presence of traces of the passage of a glacier at a distance from the Alps. This idea was initially disputed by another Swiss scientist, Louis Agassiz, a year later, Agassiz raised the hypothesis of a great glacial period that would have had long-reaching general effects
8.
Moraine
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A moraine is any glacially formed accumulation of unconsolidated glacial debris that occurs in both currently and formerly glaciated regions on Earth, through geomorphological processes. Moraines are formed from debris previously carried along by a glacier, lateral moraines are formed at the side of the ice flow and terminal moraines at the foot, marking the maximum advance of the glacier. Other types of moraine include ground moraines, till-covered areas with irregular topography, moraines may be composed of debris ranging in size from silt-sized glacial flour to large boulders. The debris is typically sub-angular to rounded in shape, moraines may be on the glacier’s surface or deposited as piles or sheets of debris where the glacier has melted. Moraines may form through a number of processes, depending on the characteristics of sediment, the dynamics on the ice, moraine forming processes may be loosely divided into passive and active. Passive processes involve the placing of chaotic supraglacial sediments onto the landscape with limited reworking and these moraines are composed of supraglacial sediments from the ice surface. Active processes form or rework moraine sediment directly by the movement of ice and these form push moraines and thrust-block moraines, which are often composed of till and reworked proglacial sediment. Moraine may also form by the accumulation of sand and gravel deposits from glacial streams emanating from the ice margin and these fan deposits may coalesce to form a long moraine bank marking the ice margin. Several processes may combine to form and rework a single moraine, moraines can be classified either by origin, location with respect to a glacier or former glacier, or by shape. Some moraine types are only from ancient glaciers, while medial moraines of valley glaciers are poorly preserved. Lateral moraines are parallel ridges of debris deposited along the sides of a glacier, the unconsolidated debris can be deposited on top of the glacier by frost shattering of the valley walls and/or from tributary streams flowing into the valley. The till is carried along the glacial margin until the glacier melts, lateral moraines stand high because they protect the ice under them from the elements, causing it to melt or sublime less than the uncovered parts of the glacier. Multiple lateral moraines may develop as the glacier advances and retreats, ground moraines are till-covered areas with irregular topography and no ridges, often forming gently rolling hills or plains. They are accumulated at the base of the ice as lodgment till, in alpine glaciers, ground moraines are often found between the two lateral moraines. Ground moraines may be modified into drumlins by the overriding ice, Rogen moraines or ribbed moraines are a type of basal moraines that form a series of ribs perpendicular to the ice flow in an ice sheet. The depressions between the ribs are sometimes filled with water, making the Rogen moraines look like tigerstripes on aerial photographs, Rogen moraines are named after Lake Rogen in Härjedalen, Sweden, the landform’s type locality. End moraines, or terminal moraines, are ridges of unconsolidated debris deposited at the snout or end of the glacier and they usually reflect the shape of the glaciers terminus. Glaciers act much like a belt, carrying debris from the top of the glacier to the bottom where it deposits it in end moraines
9.
Alluvial plain
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An alluvial plain is a largely flat landform created by the deposition of sediment over a long period of time by one or more rivers coming from highland regions, from which alluvial soil forms. As the highlands due to weathering and water flow, the sediment from the hills is transported to the lower plain. Various creeks will carry the water further to a river, lake, bay, as the sediments are deposited during flood conditions in the floodplain of a creek, the elevation of the floodplain will be raised. As this reduces the channel capacity, the creek will, over time, seek new, lower paths. These processes, over time, will form the plain. The NCSS glossary instead suggests flood plain
