WOGE #263

[reynardo]

I think Felix must be giving me easy ones on purpose - as mentioned before, WOGE #262 was not-that-far-away - The Mallee. Just so you northerner types know, "close by" in Australia is pretty much "anything under 500km away".

So - the next one. A hard decision. Very hard. Finally went with this one because it's got SO MUCH in it!


Click on the picture for the larger version on Flickr, but then come back here for the comments, please.

There are three "Where on Google Earth" games running, and this is the geological one number 263. The rules for this one are here. Quite simply, identify this place (Long and Lat) and give a summary of the geological significance, in the comments on this Livejournal. You should be able to sign in with Open ID, but if not, just leave your name in the comment.

I'm invoking the Schott Rule with this one, because with any luck that'll slow things down just a tad. And yes, I can hear some of you already twitching and checking your clocks. This entry posted at 00:01 (Pumpkin Time) in Melbourne on Wednesday Feb 2, (GMT 13:01 Tuesday 1st Feb, US EST 8:01 Tuesday 1st Feb).

Comments

[mr-figgy.livejournal.com]

Would you say it's as easy as playing "guess the song", with a file to which I had already manually appended the song title and artist at an earlier time?

[reynardo.livejournal.com]

I'd say they're both difficult in their own ways, and in each a little insider knowledge makes all the difference.

BTW, the first one (Beautiful loser) worked well, but I'm still thinking on the second one.

[mr-figgy.livejournal.com]

I actually don't listen to the second one much at all, I just thought it was the Roxy Music cover. I think "Beautiful Loser" is the best song on the entire album. And they're a great live act, I must have at least three of their shows on file by now; Jay is a proper frontman.

[http://www.google.com/profiles/Atwasi (from livejournal.com)]

41°55' south
171°25' east

Near Charleston, NZ

My first thought was: This looks like a "Lord of the Rings" filming location :) And NZ features precisely the right geology, vegetation, hue and color. Finding the actual spot took some time though.

On first glance, this looks like a nice braided/meander river geometry with lots of fluvial deposits. But let me check my textbooks and the google first.

[http://www.google.com/profiles/Atwasi (from livejournal.com)]

Oh, I apparently missed some of the nicest parts. We see the Nile river (it was bothered by the protests in Egypt and emigrated to NZ), which features magnificent limestone caves and cliffs. This area is also famous for a gold rush in 1867.

Furthermore, the Northern part seems to clash with early cretaceous orthogneiss, which is not directly visible on the picture.

Maybe there is more to it, but that's what I can gather at the moment.


-Stryke

[reynardo.livejournal.com]

Bravo! Well done! Charleston itself wasn't used for LOTR (although I went to a lot of the locations as well), but the picture shows the entrance to the Charleston caves. The entire area is peppered with old, failed gold mines. The town itself, about 4km west, used to have a population of 5000 but now has about 20.

This spot is on one of the fault-lines. To the east of the river is the laminated siltstone that further south hits the coast and becomes the Pancake Rocks. The raised terraces contain a wonderful set of Potikohuna Limestone caves, complete with glow-worms. There is uplift here, although not as drastic as the Mt Cook area (that seems to be going up at a rate of 5-10 mm a year). To the west is the deposition of all the lovely sediment from the eastern formations, and thus the alluvial goldfields. Charleston genuinely has golden sands!

What helps the erosion, ensures that the streams remain full, and has the old diggings covered in vegitation (to the point where it's dangerous to bushwalk off the tracks because you can fall in an old shaft) is the rainfall. Westport (just to the north) averages 2,275 mm of rain a year. That's right - over two metres. And we can verify that with personal experience - every day we were in New Zealand, it rained.

Enough raving. Stryke - go for it! And please post the link to WOGE #264 right here.

Side note - I can recommend the cave tour highly, and you get to ride on a minature railway to the cave entrance too!

[http://www.google.com/profiles/Atwasi (from livejournal.com)]

Thanks :)

I just stumbled on this: http://thomasbrown.org/weirdrock1/weirdrock.html which seems to be one of the few geology web sources available for that area. The pancake rocks look very nice indeed. Unfortunately, I've never been to NZ so far, it's high on my must-see list :D

WoGe 265 will be up around 11 pm UTC. Have to go to bed now...

[reynardo.livejournal.com]

This PDF from the NZ Government isn't bad, as is this.

Oh - and it's #264 for you! And I have to tell you that the two weeks I had in NZ was wonderful.

Strong warning, though. Let someone else do the driving. Otherwise you'll spend half your time swerving as you point out yet another amazing rock formation, and the other half stopping the car going "I just have to get a closer look at this..."

Things like this, for instance.

[http://www.google.com/profiles/Atwasi (from livejournal.com)]

sorry for the 30 minute delay.

woge 264 is up:
http://www.scienceblogs.de/and-the-water-seems-inviting/2011/02/where-on-google-earth-264.php

[reynardo.livejournal.com]

What? You have a LIFE? Not allowed - now get back to that screen and keep ... whatever it is you were doing.

And it looks stunning. Dammit.

[http://www.google.com/profiles/Atwasi (from livejournal.com)]

hehe :) nah, i simply had a few problems with google chrome. It kept crashing when I tried to upload it. Weird. Otherwise I like it very much.

If you like the page with all the German gibberish translated, try this:
http://bit.ly/gMR8c5

Don't be fooled however, it translated some of the English stuff into English as well. Like "Woge" :)