The New Zealand Geotechnical Society has been producing some excellent geotechnical reference and design guidance documents. Their most recent, Slope Stability Guidance Unit 3, was released this month in draft form, and they are looking […]
On February 22, 2011, at 12:46 pm local time, a 7.1 moment magnitude earthquake struck Christchurch, New Zealand, killing 185 people. This week, memorial activities were held to honor the victims. Radio New Zealand has […]
Sumner Road in Christchurch, New Zealand is a critical infrastructure link between Christchurch, the Port of Lyttleton, and the communities of Sumner and Lyttelton. It was severely damaged in the 2010-2011 earthquakes that struck the […]
The magnitude 7.8 earthquake in Kaikoura New Zealand in 2016 caused over 50 landslides along State Highway 1, north and south of the Town. The team of engineers tasked with reopening the corridor to road and rail traffic […]
An article by the NZ Herald reports that recommendations for slope monitoring and early warning made by a geotechnical consulting firm in a report 2 years before the initial failure were not adopted by Auckland Transport. The […]
Significant destruction has occurred in New Zealand as a result of a 7.8 magnitude earthquake near the town of Kaikoura, about 2 hours drive north of Christchurch. Video footage shows significant surface rupture causing damage […]
URS (Australia/New Zealand) and EarthScience Information Systems (EScIS) are pleased to announce the purchase of an unlimited usage ESdat Licence by URS for its Australian and New Zealand Offices.
URS will use ESdat to manage laboratory and field data related to groundwater, contaminated site, and other environmental projects.
[Editor] Read on for the rest of the press release from EScIS and ESdat [/Editor]
Construction or maintenance personnel and a geotechnical engineer narrowly avoided being a victim of a new landslide at the site of a landslide cleanup. They were attempting to clean up a landslide on the State […]
This article notes that the combination of shallow water table and crummy soils make it difficult to rebuild safely in the Christchurch, New Zealand business district. Another interesting item mentioned in the article is that […]
A deadly magnitude 6.3 earthquake struck Christchurch, New Zealand on February 22, killing at least 147 and with around 200 still missing. Many buildings have been badly damaged or destroyed and residents also had to deal with large quanities of mud and water which was a result of the liquefaction. The same region was affected by a 7.1 magnitude quake in September of 2010. That earthquake was centered deeper and farther from the metropolitan area so there were fewer casualties and less damage. But many buildings that had recently been repaired, or were even still under repair were devastated once again. Some early reports were calling this earthquake an aftershock of the September earthquake, but maps I’ve seen (at right) show pretty clearly it was a different fault segment that ruptured during this earthquake. I have a collection of links below that might be of interest. My heart goes out to the people of New Zealand affected by this disaster.
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