At 20:56 23/09/98 +1000, Alan Morris wrote:
>Re Lord Howe Island Works programme
That incredible Lord Howe Island flood event was witnessed by Earth
Scientists Dr David Roots, Dr Robert Coenraads, and Ian Hutton, all
together on the Island running a tour.
It rained half a meter in a couple of hours, and totally saturated the
soil, causing slope collapse and manu wet beds.
To have three such observers present on the day of a 500 year flood event
was dead lucky, and resulted in a thorough study of the Island in chaos. We
recorded all of the numerous landslides, measured them and calculated
volumes, photographed the exposed bedrock to record what had sheared, and
used the observations to unravel the history of past such events.
We are there every 6 months, so we will continue to monitor the slides on
an ongoing basis. We are observing the rate of colonization of the bare
surfaces, what plants are doing the colonizing, the effects of the mud
released into the lagoon on the coral, the rate of tidal removal of mud,
and many additional matters. Our results are now in advanced preparation
for publication. Anyone interested can drop me an e-mail.
Sorry there is not much bird talk in this. The birds semed little affected
by the rain, and there were few nesting in June. However, on such an island
you only experience more if you see the whole picture. We now know so much
more about the island's history and its longevity than we did before that
night.
David Roots
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