Supervolcanoes the topic of free ‘super tour’

Colin Wilson is talking supervolcanoes this month. Photo: sciencelens 2017.

With Taupo being one of the world’s supervolcanoes, Central North Island residents are being encouraged to attend a free talk on ‘The Life and Times of Supervolcanoes’ by 2017 Rutherford Medal recipient Professor Colin Wilson.

Colin is heading to 22 locations nationally, including six in the Central North Island during August, where he’ll talk on supervolcanoes.

This tour is presented by Royal Society Te Aparangi in partnership with GNS Science, the Earthquake Commission and Victoria University.

The society’s most prestigious public address given by a very distinguished researcher annually, Colin’s lecture is an unprecedented tour by a winner of this medal.

Colin, FRS FRSNZ, from the School of Geography, Environment and Earth Sciences at Victoria University, was awarded the Rutherford Medal at 2017’s NZ Research Honours for his research into understanding large, explosive supervolcanoes and the hazards they pose.

The Rutherford Medal is the society’s highest award, recognising eminent research or technological practice in science, mathematics, social science, or technology.

An outstanding field-focused geologist, Colin, who is British-born but based his career in NZ, says there are several things that fascinate him about volcanoes.

“The finding of new things that have not been recognised before; the challenge of trying to work out what has gone on in past eruptions, where if the eruption were to be repeated, you would not survive; as well as the enjoyment of being able to work on things from the very largescale in the field down to the microscopic scale in the laboratory.”

Being on the south-western edge of the ‘Pacific Ring of Fire’, a zone related to the tectonic movements of the Pacific Plate that include more than 75 per cent of the world’s volcanoes, NZ has had, probably since its infancy, active volcanism.

Active and dormant volcanoes, associated geothermal areas and volcanic remnants are visible throughout our landscape. However, in recent times, eruptions have only been in the Taupo Volcanic Zone and the Kermadec Arc, since Mount Taranaki’s last activity in 1854.

Strikingly though, NZ is where the world’s most violent volcanic eruption happened within the last 5000 years – known as the Taupo Eruption.

To register for one of Colin’s free talks – in the events calendar above – see: https://royalsociety.org.nz/events


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