The document summarizes the Ngai Tahu legend of the creation of the Southern Alps, with the sky father Raki's sons turning to stone and forming the mountain peaks. It then discusses geologist Harold Wellman and his pioneering ideas around plate tectonics in New Zealand, including his proposal that rocks on opposite sides of the Alpine Fault were once joined before separating laterally. Wellman was considered the most influential New Zealand geologist of the 20th century for his original thinking that challenged accepted views.

1. Ka Tiritiri o te Moana

2. Ka Tiritiri o te Moana
 Ka Tiritiri o te Moana* the frothing of
the ocean.
 The Ngai Tahu legend of the creation of
the Southern Alps. Raki’s (the Sky father)
four sons Aoraki (cloud in sky), Rakiroa
(long Raki), Rakirua ( Raki the second)
and Rarakiroa (long unbroken line) in their
waka, Te Waka o Aoraki ran aground on a
reef, listed to the east and turned into
stone.

3. Ka Tiritiri o te Moana
 The higher west side of the waka became
the Southern Alps. The brothers also
turned to stone: Aoraki (Mt Cook), Rakiroa
(Mt Dampier), Rakirua (Mt Teichelmann)
and Rakiroa (Mt Tasman).
* Legend acknowledged to Te Runanga o Ngai Tahu, Christchurch

4. Harold Wellman – other knowledge
 Harold Wellman born in
Liverpool arrived in NZ aged
18 in 1927. He worked as a
surveyor and explored widely,
living rough in the mountains
and wearing out many pairs of
boots.
 He developed hunches from
his many geological
observations, arguing
relentlessly with his
colleagues.

5. Harold Wellman
 Geologists believed that the movement of faults was
mainly vertical, with little or no sideways movement.
 Wellman in 1949 startled his contemporaries by
proposing that matching rocks on the opposite sides
of the Alpine Fault in Nelson and Otago had once
been joined.
Later they separated by sideways (transcurrent)
movement of 480 kilometres.

6. A The Haast schists (green) from
L
Cretaceous era were linked.
The older Pre-cambrian rocks
P (orange) were linked
I
N
E
F
A
U
L
T Southern Alps faultline - movement along the line of the fault

7. Harold Wellman
 Wellman recalled that the idea came to him on
a wet Sunday afternoon, when he picked up a
pair of scissors and cut the newly published
geological map of the South Island along the
Alpine Fault to see if the opposite sides
matched
 Wellman DSc FRSNZ (1909–1999) published
important scientific papers on a diversity of
subjects: active faults, New Zealand coals,
archaeology, the Antarctic dry valleys and
palaeontology.

8. Plate tectonics

9. Earthquakes
RED shallow (<40km) Deep (40-300+ km)
Shallow Deep

10. Harold Wellman
 The concept of plate tectonics, developed
overseas in the late 1960s, provided a unifying
explanation for many key features of New
Zealand’s geology.
 Wellman began a crusade to change the minds
of the unbelievers. In his lifetime there were
many arguments about the Alpine Fault and
plate tectonics.
 Most of what was debated 50 years ago is now
accepted.

11. Tectonic West New Zealand East
plate
movement

12. Subduction of Pacific plate under the
Australian plate

13. Harold Wellman
A relentless observer and
an original thinker with an
unusual ability to
understand relationships
between time and space.
He is generally considered
the most influential New
Zealand geologist of the
twentieth century.

14. Erosion
 Not only are mountains thrust up, but they
are worn and broken down by erosion
from ice, wind, rain and even
earthquakes.
 What goes up is slowly ground down.

15. Single gravel fan
from one valley in Southern Alps

16. Braided rivers
carry eroded rock material to the sea

17. River sediment
fans out and deposits on the ocean floor

18. Aoraki
 Wellman’s startling transcurrent theory of lateral
movement each side of the Alpine fault was a
feature of the 1949 geology Conference. It has
stood the exacting tests of proof and taken its
place in global tectonic plate theory.
 Aoraki stands, piercing the clouds with his three
brothers, on the hull of their petrified waka, the
tears of Raki bathing them, washing their feet,
flowing down the great awanui, Waimakariri,
Rakaia and Rangitata to tangaroa the sea.

19. Alpine Fault
 References
 Barker, M (2006) New Zealand Science Teacher
113, 27-37
 Coates, G. (2002) The rise and fall of the
Southern Alps. Christchurch, New Zealand,
Canterbury University Press.
 Images for tectonics vulcan.wr.usgs.gov
 Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_
Wellman