Ambassador Alvin

Tēnā koutou,

I'm Alvin the LEARNZ ambassador. I go on all the trips with Shelley and help look after the other ambassadors from your school. This is going to be a great adventure to find out more about the awesome forces that shape our country.

Based in Marlborough you will discover more about earthquakes, tsunami and landslides, how they have affected this area in the past and of course how to prepare for possible future geohazards.

I can't wait and I look forward to you joining us in this geologically active part of the country.

See you soon,

Alvin.

Monday 27 April

Kia ora,

I was a bit grumpy about having to get up so early when everyone else was on holiday today but at least I’m going somewhere interesting.

There wasn’t much of a view as we flew north but Kimmy and Alex managed to keep me entertained with stories from their home towns.

It was surprising to see how big the rivers were as we drove to Kaikōura from Nelson. I guess the weather is another type of natural hazard, just not the type that we’ll be looking at on this trip. I’m hoping the weather will be better tomorrow so we can go exploring.

See you then,

Alvin, the LEARNZ ambassador

Tuesday 28 April

Hi guys,

We had a busy day exploring Kaikōura today. We learnt about earthquakes, tsunami and landslides and it was interesting to hear that in the past every part of our coastline has been hit by a tsunami at some stage – some of these have been quite small, while others have been much larger. Luckily we now know what to do if we think there might be a tsunami coming.

I’m looking forward to tomorrow when we will find out more about the Cook Strait earthquakes.

See you then,

Alvin, the LEARNZ ambassador.

Wednesday 29 April

Hi guys,

We had much better weather in Blenheim today which made our exploring that much more pleasant. We went out to Lake Grassmere to see where the 2013 magnitude 6.6 earthquake occurred. It is weird that earthquakes of a higher magnitude sometimes cause less damage because they are further away or happen in areas where the ground shakes less.

We also saw two more active faults and found out that when longer faults rupture they generate earthquakes that last longer.

Tomorrow we are going to be back in Nelson ready to find out more about geohazards.

Bye for now,

Alvin, the LEARNZ ambassador.

Thursday 30 April

Hi there,

I am pretty exhausted after all our travelling around but I have learnt such a lot on this field trip. I found out that landslides are one of our most expensive geohazards because we have so many of them. We saw an area that slipped in an earthquake a long time ago but is still on the move causing damage to some houses.

Well, I will miss Kimmy and Alex but I’m looking forward to getting home.

See you on another field trip soon.

Alvin, the LEARNZ ambassador.