On the day the the government and council jointly announced who will fund what, for the Christchurch rebuild, a rainbow appears over the rebuild of the Latimer Hotel. For the central city the figures are: NZ$4.9 billion with $2.9 billion coming from central government and $1.9 billion coming from the local city council (us ratepayers in Christc...
Went for a drive down to South New Brighton/Southshore after work today to see what interesting birds I could find on the Estuary (godwits, skuas, terns etc), but passing Jellico Street, I saw this. T-Rex the seismic survey truck from the University of Texas that is visiting the city (first time out of USA). Weighs 30 tonne and from the marks o...
Maybe it should be titled "Pray Here"! The old church buildings next to the Christchurch Basilica (Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament) have been demolished and replaced with ANOTHER Wilson's Car Park. Hundreds of sites in the city where buildings have been demolished after the earthquakes have been replaced in the short term by car parks!
20131212_6234_1D3-24 Another New Brighton building comes down (Day 346/365) The old Esplanade Tavern is being demolished due to damage suffered in the earthquakes of 2011. Another one of New Brighton's iconic buildings to go. #4457
20130613_7580_1D3-24 19 Velsheda Street The two nice trees in the front of my old property on the right (now owned by the government) have been cut down so the main section of the house behind could be trucked down the drive. The truck must have been up against the fence to get the height above the house to the left (15 Velsheda Street). Down t...
Scavenger Hunt 101 - SH 52 (graffiti) Graffiti (or wall art) on the now visible side of a building in central Christchurch. There are still about 100 major buildings to be demolished in the city post the earthquakes.
Low tide on the Avon River at New Brighton/Bexley. Note the original bank and the rock wall slipage on right. The white additions were added in March and April 2011 to protect the properties behind from flooding. Ultimately this area was "red zoned" with all houses removed or to be removed and the ground left till a rehabilitation method can ...
20140521_1080_1D3-24 It has started! Removal of the double-glazed windows is underway at my "red zone" house, now owned by the Government of New Zealand. Sold to CERA (the government agency) in October 2012 and has remained empty since, despite having little damage, apart from the tilt to the front from the land damage that occurred during the...
20140713_1530_1D3-40 A throne for a King? [Explored] Another house has gone from Seabreeze Close, Pacific Park, Bexley, leaving just the concrete base, a few floor tiles and the smashed toilet (throne). Houses are being demolished (85%) or deconstructed/shifted (15%) as a result of land damage in the major earthquakes of 4th September 2010, ...
20140927_2219_1D3-24 Planting natives at Harold Henry Park A planting of native bushes and trees in the old children's playground area in Bexley, Organised by the Facebook group Avon River Park and assisted by ex Bexley residents. This is right in the middle of the Bexley red zone with most houses removed or demolished now. #5832
The sign reads: The CTV Building was headquarters of Canterbury Television (CTV) and also housed King’s Education language School, a medical clinic, Hair Consultants, Relationship Services and a nursing school. On February 22nd 2011 the building collapsed as a result of a major earthquake. Sadly, 115 people who were in the building lost their l...
20160104_1602_7D2-20 Porritt Park Porritt Park was, before the earthquakes, the headquarters of hockey in this region. Two astro-turf fields (the main one was to the left of the building), and corporate offices etc. The earthquakes buckled all the playing surfaces and damaged the buildings; a couple of smaller ones have been removed. Hocke...
20160415_0029_1D3-24 Red Zone Closures The permanent closure (to motor vehicles) of the Bexley red zone streets has started. This was once the main south-north route just west of the Avon River in the New Brighton area, till an expressway (ring road) was built about 80m to the west (right) about 12-13 years ago. Then it became just another ...
20160415_0039_1D3-40 The Wobbly Jetty - 1 (106/366) [Explored] The South New Brighton jetty was rebuilt a couple of years before the 2010 and 2011 earthquakes wrecked it. Then, it was straight, level and all railings on left side were intact. Was closed to the public for about four years but is open now. #7221
AMI Stadium (Lancaster Park), not used since the February 2011 earthquake. It was used predominantly for rugby and cricket. We are still waiting to see what the outcome is for this stadium. Government want a new one closer to the CBD, so there is talk of this being demolished, while others want it repaired. The concrete pad lower left is ...
20131214_6268_1D3-24 Where once stood houses (Day 348/365) The area beside the lower Avon River in New Brighton of Evans Avenue and Admirals Way has been cleared of houses and boundary fences (there were between 15 and 20 houses on this block) , fully fenced with post and wire and "spray on" grass applied. These were all red zone properties a...
20131228_6786_1D3-97 Twelve Days of Christmas (part 1) The NG building on Madras Street was given the go ahead to repair earthquake damage, which the owners did at some expense, Now, the government want this land to build a central city stadium, so there is a protest on the windows set to the Christmas song the Twelve Days of Christmas. 12 mi...
20130613_7577_1D3-24 My Trees cut down so a house being removed from behind could get out above the fence on one of those elevating house removal trailers. I don't know the story about the yellow (recycling) wheelie bin - the wheels have been removed. This was my house from March 2004 to mid-2012 when it was purchased by the government as it s...
Only it is worse this time! As from Wednesday I won't have car access to the property, nor the street, nor one of the neighbouring streets - for a month at least! A second attempt to do a sewer repair after the earthquakes - yes I know they were 3 to 2½ years ago!
20160307_0012_1D3-32 Subway is closed (067/366) The Subway shop in the High Street Mall has not operated since lunch time on the 22nd February 2011 when the most damaging of Christchurch and Canterbury's earthquakes struck. I assume the building is still to be demolished. #7119
The ticket office at Lancaster Park (AMI Stadium), not used since the February 2011 earthquake. Windows broken and door boarded up. We are still waiting to see what the outcome is for this stadium. Government want a new one closer to the CBD, so there is talk of this being demolished, while others want it repaired.
None
One of many disabled carparks outside what used to be one of the great sporting complexes in New Zealand. The Queen Elizabeth II Park complex in north-east Christchurch was built initially for the 1974 Commonwealth Games and was used for track and field and the adjoining pool complex had swimming and diving. It was built on an area that was used...
The old (or is that the new) Inland Revenue Department (IRD) building on the corner of Madras and Cashel Streets in central Christchurch. Built in 2006/07 on the site of the former Farmers department store (itself badly damaged by fire), it was just a few years old when the earthquake of February 2011 struck, and subsequent quakes (all through 2...
A review of the week's news including... Mt Albert voters head to the polls to select a new MP this weekend, we hear from three candidates contesting the by election, Maori political leaders respond explosively to the Labour leader's comments that the Maori party is "not kaupapa Maori", how did a senior council roading manager receive over 1.1 million dollars in payments from a council contractor without his bosses knowing? the High Court rules Kim Dotcom is eligible for extradition US, the Fire Service's principal rural fire officer says lives may have been lost had firefighters not been told to return to their station, Sky TV says a decision to deny its billion dollar proposal to buy Vodafone is bizarre and disappointing, Pharmac considers funding women's sanitary products, we have coverage from the 6th anniversary of the Christchurch earthquake, the Prime Minister puts the board of the NZ Super Fund on notice after it approved a 23 percent pay increase for its Chief Executive, an Australian woman helping New Zealand dairy farmers across the Tasman who have fallen onto hard times is horrified by a lack of Government help and helicopters to Hercules and F-16s to classic spitfire replicas are on display at Ohakea airforce base during this weekend's Air Tattoo.
Porritt Park was, before the earthquakes, the headquarters of hockey in this region. Two astro-turf fields (the main one was other side of the building), and corporate offices etc. The earthquakes buckled all the playing surfaces and damaged the buildings; a couple of smaller ones have been removed. Hockey shifted the other side of the city t...
A wide range of reinforced concrete (RC) wall performance was observed following the 2010/2011 Canterbury earthquakes, with most walls performing as expected, but some exhibiting undesirable and unexpected damage and failure characteristics. A comprehensive research programme, funded by the Building Performance Branch of the New Zealand Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, and involving both numerical and experimental studies, was developed to investigate the unexpected damage observed in the earthquakes and provide recommendations for the design and assessment procedures for RC walls. In particular, the studies focused on the performance of lightly reinforced walls; precast walls and connections; ductile walls; walls subjected to bi-directional loading; and walls prone to out-of-plane instability. This paper summarises each research programme and provides practical recommendations for the design and assessment of RC walls based on key findings, including recommended changes to NZS 3101 and the NZ Seismic Assessment Guidelines.
Recurrent liquefaction in Christchurch during the 2010-2011 Canterbury earthquake sequence created a wealth of shallow subsurface intrusions with geometries and orientations governed by (1) strong ground motion severity and duration, and (2) intrinsic site characteristics including liquefaction susceptibility, lateral spreading severity, geomorphic setting, host sediment heterogeneity, and anthropogenic soil modifications. We present a suite of case studies that demonstrate how each of these characteristics influenced the geologic expressions of contemporary liquefaction in the shallow subsurface. We compare contemporary features with paleo-features to show how geologic investigations of recurrent liquefaction can provide novel insights into the shaking characteristics of modern and paleo-earthquakes, the influence of geomorphology on liquefaction vulnerability, and the possible controls of anthropogenic activity on the geologic record. We conclude that (a) sites of paleo-liquefaction in the last 1000-2000 years corresponded with most severe liquefaction during the Canterbury earthquake sequence, (b) less vulnerable sites that only liquefied in the strongest and most proximal contemporary earthquakes are unlikely to have liquefied in the last 1000-2000 years or more, (c) proximal strong earthquakes with large vertical accelerations favoured sill formation at some locations, (d) contemporary liquefaction was more severe than paleoliquefaction at all study sites, and (e) stratigraphic records of successive dike formation were more complete at sites with severe lateral spreading, (f) anthropogenic fill suppressed surface liquefaction features and altered subsurface liquefaction architecture.
A scanned copy of a black and white photograph of the He-Ne Continuous Gas Laser used in David Lockwood's MSc research at the University of Canterbury. David says, "The experiments in the Thesis were aimed at examining the effects of sound waves on colloids, which are very small particles that are found in clays for example (for more details see page 181 of http://www.cap.ca/PiC-PaC/static/downloads/1efdc1f3784b85c1a1b33e396b91ee8aef2072c5.pdf ). In fact, I was looking at nanoparticles of matter, which preceded the emergence of nanotechnology as a field of research by more than two decades. I needed a suitable light source to probe the alignment of the nanoparticles in the ultrasonic sound field. At that time the laser had just been invented and I realized that this was the ideal light source for my experiment. I then proceeded to construct the first home-built laser in New Zealand. This laser - a He-Ne continuous-wave gas laser - operated at 632.8 nm (in the red). This laser, over a metre long, is shown in the black-and-white photo. There were lot of problems to be overcome, but eventually, with invaluable help from Dr. Tom Seed (my MSc supervisor) and Dr. Rod Syme, I had it working".
This article presents a quantitative case study on the site amplification effect observed at Heathcote Valley, New Zealand, during the 2010-2011 Canterbury earthquake sequence for 10 events that produced notable ground acceleration amplitudes up to 1.4g and 2.2g in the horizontal and vertical directions, respectively. We performed finite element analyses of the dynamic response of the valley, accounting for the realistic basin geometry and the soil non-linear response. The site-specific simulations performed significantly better than both empirical ground motion models and physics based regional-scale ground motion simulations (which empirically accounts for the site effects), reducing the spectral acceleration prediction bias by a factor of two in short vibration periods. However, our validation exercise demonstrated that it was necessary to quantify the level of uncertainty in the estimated bedrock motion using multiple recorded events, to understand how much the simplistic model can over- or under-estimate the ground motion intensities. Inferences from the analyses suggest that the Rayleigh waves generated near the basin edge contributed significantly to the observed high frequency (f>3Hz) amplification, in addition to the amplification caused by the strong soil-rock impedance contrast at the site fundamental frequency. Models with and without considering soil non-linear response illustrate, as expected, that the linear elastic assumption severely overestimates ground motions in high frequencies for strong earthquakes, especially when the contribution of basin edge-generated Rayleigh waves becomes significant. Our analyses also demonstrate that the effect of pressure-dependent soil velocities on the high frequency ground motions is as significant as the amplification caused by the basin edge-generated Rayleigh waves.