Geological hazards

Our team of researchers have recently returned from a voyage onboard RV Tangaroa to retrieve moorings deployed to collect sediment samples from the Kaikōura Canyon.

A six-metre long orange underwater robot is flying through the Kaikōura Canyon for the next month collecting information on how the canyon has changed since the 2016 earthquake.

A network of state-of-the-art tsunami buoys is being deployed from New Zealand up into the Pacific to keep communities safer.

NIWA scientists have completed the first national assessment of people and buildings at risk in New Zealand’s tsunami evacuation zones.

NIWA marine geologist Arne Pallentin is looking for telltale gas bubble 'flares"—using a multibeam echosounder—that indicate new volcanic activity in the Calypso Vent Field.

Marine geologist - Dr Joshu Mountjoy - is mapping the seafloor landscape around Whakaari/White Island to understand how much sediment was dislodged in the eruption and where it has gone.

Marine Geophysicist Sally Watson, maps the seafloor and takes samples from the water column so we can understand geological processes shaping the volcanic underwater realm around Whakaari/White Island.

During the TAN2007 voyage NIWA scientists headed to the waters around Whakaari/White Island in the Bay of Plenty to survey changes to the seafloor since the volcanic eruption in December 2019.

NIWA scientists are heading to the waters around Whakaari/White Island in the Bay of Plenty next week to survey changes to the seafloor.

An ambitious international scientific project to study New Zealand’s largest earthquake fault is now enabling scientists to learn more about slow slip earthquakes happening in subduction zones around the world.

New information about landslides that occur on the seafloor off New Zealand’s east coast will help scientists better understand why and where they happen, and the types of threats they pose.

A chance discovery off the Gisborne coast five years ago is prompting a NIWA scientist to find out more about the link between a field of methane seeps bubbling out of the sea floor and submarine landslides.