A photograph of repaired cracks on Governors Bay Road.
A photograph of repaired cracks on Governors Bay Road.
A photograph of repaired cracks on Governors Bay Road.
A photograph of cracks in the ground near Governors Bay Road.
A photograph of cracks in the ground near Governors Bay Road.
A photograph of cracks in the ground near Governors Bay Road.
A photograph of cracks in the ground near Governors Bay Road.
A photograph of cracks in the ground near Governors Bay Road.
A photograph captioned by Paul Corliss, "Port Hills Road factories, post drill and glue of cracks".
A photograph captioned by Paul Corliss, "Port Hills Road factories, post drill and glue of cracks".
A photograph captioned by Paul Corliss, "Port Hills Road factories, post drill and glue of cracks".
A photograph captioned by Paul Corliss, "Port Hills Road factories, post drill and glue of cracks".
A photograph captioned by Paul Corliss, "Port Hills Road factories, post drill and glue of cracks".
A photograph captioned by Paul Corliss, "Port Hills Road factories, post drill and glue of cracks".
A photograph captioned by Paul Corliss, "Port Hills Road factories, post drill and glue of cracks".
A photograph of a picnic table near Governors Bay Road. The concrete pad underneath has cracked.
A photograph of a picnic table near Governors Bay Road. The concrete pad underneath has cracked.
A photograph of a crack in the concrete pad underneath a picnic table near Governors Bay Road.
A photograph of a concrete pad under a picnic table near Governors Bay Road. The concrete has shifted in the ground.
A view down Papanui Road to Victoria Street, with the Port Hills in the background. The road is closed at the intersection of Victoria Street and Bealey Avenue, and diggers are working beside a damaged building.
20130125_1749_1D3-400 Road Closed 1 The Lyttelton side of Evans Pass is closed (since the earthquake 23 months ago - 22/02/11). Prior to the road tunnel (through the Port Hills) opening in the early 1960s this was the main access road to the port of Lyttelton. #3072
Liquefaction silt surrounding a power pole in Ferry Road, next to a cut-out of a smiling and waving David Carter, National MP for the Port Hills electorate.
Liquefaction silt surrounding a power pole in Ferry Road, next to a cut-out of a smiling and waving David Carter, National MP for the Port Hills electorate.
A digitally manipulated image of a excavator claw tangled with reinforcing cable, with a damaged concrete building in the background. The photographer comments, "The monster destroying the earthquake broken buildings close to the Lyttelton tunnel".
Kia ora, Recently we had some great finds from Te Rae Kura/Redcliffs. Unbeknownst to many folks making their daily commute along the Port Hills’ Main Road, a nationally significant Māori archaeological site lies beneath their car wheels, capped by hard … Continue reading →
A photograph of staff from Abseil Access in the car park outside their office on Quakers Quay in Woolston. The staff are standing next to a trailer full of rocks which they have gathered from the Port Hills. The rocks will be painted and used to define the boundaries of Rock on Eastside, an outdoor lounge and art space on the corner of Linwood Avenue and Aldwins Road.
One landscape colour digital photograph taken on 25 February 2011 showing earthquake damage to the road, footpath and retaining wall on Norwich Quay. The photograph is taken from below the intersection of Norwich Quay and Canterbury Street looking east along Norwich Quay. Unlike most areas of Christchurch, land damage on the Port Hills was due ...
Numerous rockfalls released during the 2010–2011 Canterbury earthquake sequence affected vital road sections for local commuters. We quantified rockfall fatality risk on two main routes by adapting a risk approach for roads originally developed for snow avalanche risk. We present results of the collective and individual fatality risks for traffic flow and waiting traffic. Waiting traffic scenarios particularly address the critical spatial-temporal dynamics of risk, which should be acknowledged in operational risk management. Comparing our results with other risks commonly experienced in New Zealand indicates that local rockfall risk is close to tolerability thresholds and likely exceeds acceptable risk.
Following the 22 February 2011, MW 6.2 earthquake located on a fault beneath the Port Hills of Christchurch, fissuring of up to several hundred metres in length was observed in the loess and loess-colluvium of foot-slope positions in north-facing valleys of the Port Hills. The fissuring was observed in all major valleys, occurred at similar low altitudes, showing a contour-parallel orientation and often accompanied by both lateral compression/extension features and spring formation in the valley floor below. Fissuring locations studied in depth included Bowenvale Valley, Hillsborough Valley, Huntlywood Terrace–Lucas Lane, Bridle Path Road, and Maffeys Road–La Costa Lane. Investigations into loess soil, its properties and mannerisms, as well as international examples of its failure were undertaken, including study of the Loess Plateau of China, the Teton Dam, and palaeo-fissuring on Banks Peninsula. These investigations lead to the conclusion that loess has the propensity to fail, often due to the infiltration of water, the presence of which can lead to its instantaneous disaggregation. Literature study and laboratory analysis of Port Hills loess concluded that is has the ability to be stable in steep, sub-vertical escarpments, and often has a sub-vertically jointed internal structure and has a peak shear strength when dry. Values for cohesion, c (kPa) and the internal friction angle, ϕ (degrees) of Port Hills loess were established. The c values for the 40 Rapaki Road, 3 Glenview Terrace loess samples were 13.4 kPa and 19.7 kPa, respectively. The corresponding ϕ values were thought unusually high, at 42.0° and 43.4°.The analysed loess behaved very plastically, with little or no peak strength visible in the plots as the test went almost directly to residual strength. A geophysics resistivity survey showed an area of low resistivity which likely corresponds to a zone of saturated clayey loess/loess colluvium, indicating a high water table in the area. This is consistent with the appearances of local springs which are located towards the northern end of each distinct section of fissure trace and chemical analysis shows that they are sourced from the Port Hills volcanics. Port Hills fissuring may be sub-divided into three categories, Category A, Category B, and Category C, each characterised by distinctive features of the fissures. Category A includes fissures which display evidence of, spring formation, tunnel-gullying, and lateral spreading-like behaviour or quasi-toppling. These fissures are several metres down-slope of the loess-bedrock interface, and are in valleys containing a loess-colluvium fill. Category B fissures are in wider valleys than those in Category A, and the valleys contain estuarine silty sediments which liquefied during the earthquake. Category C fissures occurred at higher elevations than the fissures in the preceding categories, being almost coincident with bedrock outcropping. It is believed that the mechanism responsible for causing the fissuring is a complex combination of three mechanisms: the trampoline effect, bedrock fracturing, and lateral spreading. These three mechanisms can be applied in varying degrees to each of the fissuring sites in categories A, B, and C, in order to provide explanation for the observations made at each. Toppling failure can describe the soil movement as a consequence of the a three causative mechanisms, and provides insight into the movement of the loess. Intra-loess water coursing and tunnel gullying is thought to have encouraged and exacerbated the fissuring, while not being the driving force per se. Incipient landsliding is considered to be the least likely of the possible fissuring interpretations.
There are occasional sewerage spills into the Avon River while all the sewer and road repairs are carried out. This rock wall was level and well above high tide level prior to the eathquakes. All the houses that can been seen here (except for those on the distant Port Hills) are in the suburban "red zone" and are still to be demolished.