Going for a
degree in Geology? The University of Otago is a fantastic place to do
this, not least because it's in the middle of an extinct volcano.
Once upon a time, a basaltic mound 1000 m high stood where Dunedin
now is. Ten million years later we have students marveling at the
remnants of it. There are hints of ancient lava flows, ash falls and
massive eruptions. All just in one city!
To get started
with your Otago Geology degree, you'll need to take the paper known
as EAOS111. That's Earth and Ocean Science for first-year students.
As well as geology, this paper covers aspects of marine and
environmental science, with a lot of material to learn. Or as I think
of it, something for everyone! There's even a whole lecture devoted
to dinosaurs.
In EAOS there
are four lectures per week, as well as a three-hour lab session. (To
be honest, most of the labs can be finished in two hours.) Content of
the labs is quite varied; one week you'll be sketching fossilized
critters, another week creating a model ocean, another again learning
how to locate the epicentre of an earthquake. The lecturers are a
talented bunch from several departments and they include Professor
Ewan Fordyce, who last year was awarded the Hutton Medal for earth
sciences.
Also there are a
number of field trips, that number being four. Two of them are
entirely focused on the geology of the Otago region. First you'll be
taken northward to explore a few sites between Dunedin and Oamaru, a
city famous for its building-quality limestone. In nearby Boatman's
Harbour are some excellent examples of 'pillow lavas' which formed in
an undersea eruption. Each dark blob in the photo below is a single
'pillow' and some of them grew to great sizes before they cooled and
solidified millions of years ago.
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| Pillow lavas at Boatman's Harbour, friend gives scale. Photo courtesy of Tom Stevenson. |
If those
'pillows' formed under water, why are they now above the sea? That's
because the land around has since been uplifted along faults in the
rock. Such processes happen over unimaginably long periods of time,
which you get a feel for on the Taieri field trip. For those readers
who live outside Dunedin, the Taieri plain is located just to the
south-west and is crossed by the Taieri river, which drains into the
Pacific Ocean. Around here are features of a quite different nature,
sediment and sedimentary rock built by the river itself.
Over time this
river cut through the schist bedrock located to the west, ground it
up and deposited it in sediment. Some of this sediment is now
breccia, a type of rock made up of angular fragments. The Henley
Breccia formation is found on the eastern side of the Taieri plain
and was formed around the time of the last dinosaurs. Perhaps there
was once a dinosaurian ecosystem around this river; will we ever know
for sure?
Another trip
takes you to Portobello, specifically to the marine lab where living
specimens of all kinds of creatures can be studied. Here you'll learn
about how the living world is organized and how we classify living
things. Here's a starfish, a spiny-skinned echinoderm that can launch
its stomach out of its mouth. There's a bryozoan, or lace coral, a
colonial filter-feeder.
Finally there's
the trip aboard Polaris II, the university's famous research vessel.
Originally a tuna fishing boat, it's been converted for scientific
purposes. Students on the vessel will learn how sound waves can be
used to map the seafloor, how the composition of water changes as you
leave the Otago Harbour, and hopefully how to not be seasick. You'll
go right to the end of the Otago peninsula and see fantastic basalt
cliffs, also remains of that old volcano. Soaring albatross and
basking sea lions add that warm, fuzzy touch that makes a great day
outdoors.
If you're in
your last years of high school, looking for a new degree, or just
curious about geology study, this is where you shall start. EAOS111
is taught in the first semester every year at Otago.
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