Maruia Falls

Maruia Falls
	Maruia Falls (view from the north)
Coordinates	41 ° 51 '36 " S , 172 ° 15' 7.6" E Coordinates: 41 ° 51 '36 " S , 172 ° 15' 7.6" E
place	9.5 km southwest of Murchison , on the west side of New Zealand State Highway 65
height	10 m ; edge of fall : 160 m
width	130 m
Number of fall levels	1
flow	Maruia River

The Maruia Falls are waterfalls in the Tasman region of the South Island of New Zealand that were created by an earthquake .

geography

The Maruia Falls are located in the course of the Maruia River , 9 km southeast of its confluence with the Buller River . The waterfalls extend over a width of 130 m and have a drop height of around 10 m.

Emergence

Today's waterfalls, which were created as a result of an earthquake that took place on June 17, 1929 and which went down in New Zealand's history as the Murchison earthquake of 1929, only gradually emerged as the course of the river changed.

A landslide triggered by the quake blocked the river on the morning of the said day and dammed it over two days into a 4.8 km long, 150 m wide and up to 15 m deep lake with an estimated water volume of 2.9 million m³ on. Since the previous course of the river was buried by a part of the discharge of approx. 5 million m³ of earth and rock material, the water masses looked for a new path a little further west in a former river bed after two days and thus formed a new course of the river. The waterfall in its present form was created gradually through erosion , because days after the earthquake the difference in altitude was only one meter that the river had to overcome. After a year, the height of the waterfall was already 5 m and in 2000 a height of 10 m was determined.

A family of three was killed in the landslide.

Panoramic photo

and display information about the image

The Maruia Falls with the newly created river bed

literature

GT Hancox, WF Ries, RN Parker, B. Rosser : Landslides caused by the MS 7.8 Murchison earthquake of 17 June 1929 in northwest South Island, New Zealand . In: GNS Science Report 2015/42 . Volume I . Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences, 2016, ISBN 978-0-908349-01-2 , ISSN 2350-3424 (English).

Web links

Commons : Maruia Falls - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

^ ^A ^b ^c Hancox, Ries, Parker, Rosser : Landslides caused by the MS 7.8 Murchison earthquake of 17 June 1929 in northwest South Island, New Zealand . 2016, p. 80 f .
^ Hancox, Ries, Parker, Rosser : Landslides caused by the MS 7.8 Murchison earthquake of June 17, 1929 in northwest South Island, New Zealand . 2016, p. 94 .
^ Carl Walrond : Nelson places - Maruia Falls . In: Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand . Ministry for Culture & Heritage , April 22, 2015, accessed April 15, 2020 .

[GNS_Science_Report_2016_S80f-1] A ^b ^c Hancox, Ries, Parker, Rosser : Landslides caused by the MS 7.8 Murchison earthquake of 17 June 1929 in northwest South Island, New Zealand . 2016, p. 80 f .

[GNS_Science_Report_2016_S94-2] Hancox, Ries, Parker, Rosser : Landslides caused by the MS 7.8 Murchison earthquake of June 17, 1929 in northwest South Island, New Zealand . 2016, p. 94 .

[TeAra_Maruia_Falls-3] Carl Walrond : Nelson places - Maruia Falls . In: Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand . Ministry for Culture & Heritage , April 22, 2015, accessed April 15, 2020 .