Hello!
For my second stop of my world tour, I flew to New Zealand, which is on the borders of the Pacific plate and the Australian plate. I stayed in the capital Wellington, which is near the stretch of water between the North and South Island. I stayed in a hotel called At Home Wellington. I give it 5 stars! It was right downtown… So beautiful.
So back to science… the Pacific plate and the Australian Plate have a convergent boundary. It’s ocean-ocean subduction. This means that one of the plates slips underneath the other, and as it goes down it melts. This creates lava, which rises up to create volcanic islands. Here is a picture for visual representation :)
http://www.washington.edu/burkemuseum/geo_history_wa/The%20Restless%20Earth%20v.2.0_files/image015.gif
The spot of the boundary I was looking at had a latitude and longitude of about 44º S and 168º E. It was on the west side of the South Island (I took a boat across, then drove down), near the beach. The picture I took was from a ridge over looking the ocean. Gorgeous!
http://www.washington.edu/burkemuseum/geo_history_wa/The%20Restless%20Earth%20v.2.0_files/image015.gif
The spot of the boundary I was looking at had a latitude and longitude of about 44º S and 168º E. It was on the west side of the South Island (I took a boat across, then drove down), near the beach. The picture I took was from a ridge over looking the ocean. Gorgeous!
As you may know, there has been quite a lot of tectonic activity in New Zealand lately. There was a 6.3-magnitude earthquake back in February of this year. Scary! And they have had lots of volcanic activity over the past 2 million years. Until next time!
Grace
The picture from the ridge
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