Vol.15 No.4 - December 2007

To order English or Māori versions of this poster about how rips form and rip safety, go to the NIWA Posters page or contact us at [email protected].

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Man with a catch of fish, circa 1910. (Photo: G-21592-1/2, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand)
Project study areas
Then and now: Hāpuku (groper) with shed hands at Barnao’s Fish Wholesalers at Lorne Street, Wellington, in 1947. (Photo: Courtesy of Basil McManaway)
Satisfied charter client with a 67-kg hāpuku caught off Mana Island in 2005.

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Technician Shane Rodwell downloads data at one of the temporary surface stations near Twizel. (Photo: Steve LeGal)
Tony Bromley sends up the Helikite near Lake Tennyson to record a vertical profile of wind and temperature.

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Niki Davey checks the sea cucumber feeding cage at the mussel farm research site. (Photo: Chris Woods)
Dense clusters of marine farms (shown in pink) line the Pelorus Sound coast in the western sector of Marlborough  Sounds.
Schematic shows how the waste from one species feeds the other. (Photos: Chris Woods, Phil Heath, Malcolm Francis)
Waste not, want not. Jeanie Stenton-Dozey explains how waste from marine farming offers a way to increase production without enlarging the environmental footprint.

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Phylum Cryptista: scanning electron micrograph of a cell of the microalga Plagioselmis punctata. (Photo: Hoe Chang)
Phylum Ochrophyta: the bull-kelp Durvillaea antarctica. (Photo: Craig Stevens)
Phylum Bigyra. (Photo: Ross Beever, Landcare Research)
Phylum Sagenista. (Photo: Serena Cox)
Phylum Haptophyta. (Photo: Hoe Chang)
Phylum Heliozoa. (Photo: Rebecca Stott)
Dennis Gordon reviews the diversity of New Zealand’s third botanical kingdom. Kingdom Chromista?

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Munida gregaria, the sociable New Zealand shallow-water squat lobster. (Photo: Peter Batson, ExploreTheAbyss.Com)
Langostino amarillo (Cervimunida johni) sold in the fish market in Coquimbo, Chile. (Photo: Niel Bruce.)
The chirostylid Gastroptychus rogeri takes its usual stance, perched on a black coral (upper right). (Photo: NOAA / NIWA TAN0616)
Munidopsis species congregate around a cold seep in the Fiji Lau Basin. (Photo: ROPOS RV Sonne Cruise SO192-2 Mango)
Spot the three Munida gracilis and the flatfish!

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The rapidly eroding cliffs around Te Māhia. (Photo: Sheryl Miller)
Te Māhia (Mahia Peninsula)
Typical views around Te Māhia. (Photos: Sheryl Miller)
Detail from a Seawifs satellite image from 11 May 1999. (Image: Seawifs, NASA)
Residential development contributes to soil runoff into Te Māhia’s coastal waters. (Photo: Sheryl Miller)
Te Māhia locals regularly enjoy customary gathering of kaimoana, including karengo seaweed.

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A new species of tube anemone discovered during the Bioblitz. (Photo: Malcolm Francis)
Wellingtonians of all ages came out to see what lives in the proposed marine reserve. (Photo: Fiona Proffit)
NIWA divers inspect and photograph the hull of a visiting yacht. (Photo: Nicola Rush)
Marine Bioblitz finds new species NIWA marine biodiversity scientists played a major role in the world’s first Marine Bioblitz, held on Wellington’s south coast in the proposed Kupe/Kevin Smith Marine Reserve.

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A guide to common deepsea invertebrates in New Zealand waters.
Dr David John demonstrates sampling techniques to Karen’s class. (Photo: Gordon Beakes, Ulniversity of Newcastle upon Tyne)
Kristel prepares to extract urine from a crab specimen.

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Learning from the Taranaki tornadoes
This beachfront house in Oakura lost its upper storey when a tornado swept through on 5 July. (Photo: Stuart Thurston, BRANZ)
In early July, a swarm of tornadoes cut a 140-km swathe of destruction across the Taranaki region. The first tornado hit the New Plymouth CBD on the 4th, damaging several businesses, a few residential dwellings, and a racecourse.

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Snapper attracted to a baited underwater video station in the outer Hauraki Gulf. (Photo: NIWA)
Hauraki Gulf snapper - stay-at-homes, or wandering tourists? You can help us better understand snapper movements. Snapper are an important finfish species in northern New Zealand. Our understanding of their movements – both for individuals and for populations – remains relatively poor, with important implications for fish and habitat management.

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All at sea: on board Tangaroa, Shirley filters seawater in the lab and gets down and dirty with a sediment core on deck.
Show and tell with Mireille, Craig, and Kareen. (Photo: Alan Blacklock)
NZMST Teacher Fellow studies carbon dioxide levels – and more! Shirley Dudli will always remember 2007 as the year she took the plunge into the world of NIWA science as a New Zealand Science, Mathematics and Technology Teacher Fellow.

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Quick guides to New Zealand freshwater invertebrates.
New ‘Quick guides’ to freshwater invertebrates We’ve added a dozen new guides to NIWA’s successful series of pictorial identification keys for New Zealand’s freshwater flora and fauna.

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The setting is short sleeves, but the topic is serious: David at a climate change meeting in Rarotonga. (Photo: Roger Lincoln, Ministry for the Environment)
When the Nobel Peace Prize was announced in October, David Wratt suddenly found himself in the spotlight, called upon by the New Zealand media to explain  the workings of the IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

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Sea spider, or pycnogonid. (Photo: Stefano Schiaparelli, University of Genoa).
This Colossendeis specimen has two pairs of cephalic appendages – palps and ovigers – but no chelifores. (Photo: Iain MacDonald, University of Auckland)
This specimen of Austropallene cornigera sports a pair of claw-like chelifores. (Photo: Iain MacDonald, University of Auckland)
Sea spiders display a number of interesting physiological and behavioural characteristics.

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One of NIWA’s aims with this magazine is to contribute to science education in New Zealand. To this end we distribute Water & Atmosphere without charge to New Zealand high schools. Articles are assigned ‘Curriculum Connections’ to indicate which of the NZ NCEA Achievement or Unit Standards they can complement as a classroom resource.

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The Waipaoa River in flood discharges a plume of muddy water into Poverty Bay. (Photo: Dave Peacock, Gisborne District Council)
Drilling cores during MARGINS: Source-to-Sink: above, the twin-hulled research vessel Kilo Moana.