20131228_6797_1D3-58 The old Odeon Theatre The back of the old Odeon movie theatre, that was for about 15-20 years a New Life Christian Centre. This is earthquake damage, although the roof was lifted off in 2011. I don't know whether this is a building that they want to save or still awaiting demolition. The smaller building to the immediate...
A villa built on the Sumner Esplanade in Christchurch early last century has been saved from demolition and given a new lease of life. A Queenstown couple couldn't bear to see the beautiful home demolished after the earthquakes, so they bought it, had it cut into two pieces and trucked the 500-kilometres south to the Gibbston Valley near Queenstown.
…this yard being kept in a disreputable state, there are no cinder pits in proper places to throw the refuse of cooking and things in general, as at home, so old bones, vegetable remains, scrapings of plates, cinders, tea leaves, … Continue reading →
A Pitiable Case As a man was walking around Sumner road, in October 1901, a lady passed by and drew his attention to a small cave in the side of the hill where she said an old lady and her husband …
A message in a bottle, hidden under the floor of a Christchurch home for over fifty years, has been discovered during earthquake repairs and its writer's been tracked down.
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20130403_2908_G12-25 Cardboard Cathedral The temporary (10 years?) and cheap ($4-6 million) Anglican Cathedral being built a few hundred meters away from the old stone structure that was the centre of Christchurch. Both buildings (the original and this) have caused a lot of controversy, many wanting the old stone one to be repaired (the church ...
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 forum's heard from older people in Christchurch saying they feel vulnerable, misled, and left out in the cold when it comes to earthquake repairs and payouts.
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A Waikato primary school refuses to back down and re-enroll a violent eleven year old and the country's largest general insurer defends changes to home insurance policies in the wake of the Christchurch earthquakes.
All this is "red zone" after the earthquakes and has to be demolished. The roof of my "old" house (now owned by the government) can be seen between the third and fourth river-side houses.
The South New Brighton Domain jetty into the Avon-Heathcote Estuary. A new jetty replaced an older one about 6-8 years ago, then the earthquakes happened! Before the earthquakes it was straight and level and open!
A bit of the now demolished QEII (Queen Elizabeth II) Park running track in the "Gap Filler" on the old Deka site in New Brighton (last occupied by a charity barn before a major fire and subsequent demolition).
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
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One of the most commonly assumed facts about archaeologists (aside from our ability to have adventures, look good in a fedora and be surprisingly skilful with a whip), is that we can look at an object and know how old … Continue reading →
It came as a bit of a surprise when over 1000 fragments of broken stoneware jars were unearthed at an otherwise ordinary Christchurch archaeological site. But there, sitting under some old petrol tanks, was Christchurch history waiting to be found.What … Continue reading →
According to the sign it can take about 30 minutes to walk from the entry point (near the small statue) to the centre and out again. What you can do with a few thousand old bricks and gravel. See next photo for more detail.
The seismic survey truck T-Rex (from University of Texas) was in Bexley and Pacific Park a few days ago and may have left this calling card on the front lawn of my old "red zone" house. Obviously the geotechs will know what it means.
According to the sign it can take about 30 minutes to walk from the entry point (here) to the centre and out again. That is without stepping across the gaps between bricks. What you can do with a few thousand old bricks and gravel!
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Sitting on the concrete in front of what was my model railway room - a single car garage at the rear of our house in Pacific Park. Reason it is here - one of the houses behind my old house is going to be trucked out. See previous photo.
The Avon-Heathcote Estuary is of significant value to Christchurch due to its high productivity, biotic diversity, proximity to the city, and its cultural, recreational and aesthetic qualities. Nonetheless, it has been subjected to decades of degradation from sewage wastewater discharges and encroaching urban development. The result was a eutrophied estuary, high in nitrogen, affected by large blooms of nuisance macroalgae and covered by degraded sediments. In March 2010, treated wastewater was diverted from the estuary to a site 3 km offshore. This quickly reduced water nitrogen by 90% within the estuary and, within months, there was reduced production of macroalgae. However, a series of earthquakes beginning in September 2010 brought massive changes: tilting of the estuary, changes in channels and water flow, and a huge influx of liquefied sediments that covered up to 65% of the estuary floor. Water nitrogen increased due to damage to sewage infrastructure and the diversion pipeline being turned off. Together, these drastically altered the estuarine ecosystem. My study involves three laboratory and five in situ experiments that investigate the base of the food chain and responses of benthic microalgae to earthquake-driven sediment and nutrient changes. It was predicted that the new sediments would be coarser and less contaminated with organic matter and nutrients than the old sediments, would have decreased microalgal biomass, and would prevent invertebrate grazing and bioturbation activities. It was believed that microalgal biomass would become similar across new and old sediments types as the unstable new sediments were resuspended and distributed over the old sediments. Contact cores of the sediment were taken at three sites, across a eutrophication gradient, monthly from September 2011 to March 2012. Extracted chlorophyll a pigments showed that microalgal biomass was generally lower on new liquefied sediments compared to old sediments, although there was considerable site to site variation, with the highly eutrophic sites being the most affected by the emergence of the new sediments. Grazer experiments showed that invertebrates had both positive and negative site-specific effects on microalgal biomass depending on their identity. At one site, new sediments facilitated grazing by Amphibola crenata, whereas at another site, new sediments did not alter the direct and indirect effects of invertebrates (Nicon aestuariensis, Macropthalmus hirtipes, and A. crenata) on microalgae. From nutrient addition experiments it was clear that benthic microalgae were able to use nutrients from within both old and new sediments equally. This implied that microalgae were reducing legacy nutrients in both sediments, and that they are an important buffer against eutrophication. Therefore, in tandem with the wastewater diversion, they could underpin much of the recovery of the estuary. Overall, the new sediments were less favourable for benthic microalgal growth and recolonisation, but were less contaminated than old sediments at highly eutrophic sites. Because the new sediments were less contaminated than the old sediments, they could help return the estuary to a noneutrophic state. However, if the new sediments, which are less favourable for microalgal growth, disperse over the old sediments at highly eutrophic sites, they could become contaminated and interfere with estuarine recovery. Therefore, recovery of microalgal communities and the estuary was expected to be generally long, but variable and site-specific, with the least eutrophic sites recovering quickly, and the most eutrophic sites taking years to return to a pre-earthquake and non-eutrophied state. changes in channels and water flow, and a huge influx of liquefied sediments that covered up to 65% of the estuary floor. Water nitrogen increased due to damage to sewage infrastructure and the diversion pipeline being turned off. Together, these drastically altered the estuarine ecosystem. My study involves three laboratory and five in situ experiments that investigate the base of the food chain and responses of benthic microalgae to earthquake-driven sedimen tand nutrient changes. It was predicted that the new sediments would be coarser and less contaminated with organic matter and nutrients than the old sediments, would have decreased microalgal biomass, and would prevent invertebrate grazing and bioturbation activities. It was believed that microalgal biomass would become similar across new and old sediments types as the unstable new sediments were resuspended and distributed over the old sediments. Contact cores of the sediment were taken at three sites, across a eutrophication gradient, monthly from September 2011 to March 2012. Extracted chlorophyll a pigments showed that microalgal biomass was generally lower on new liquefied sediments compared to old sediments, although there was considerable site to site variation, with the highly eutrophic sites being the most affected by the emergence of the new sediments. Grazer experiments showed that invertebrates had both positive and negative site-specific effects on microalgal biomass depending on their identity. At one site, new sediments facilitated grazing by Amphibola crenata, whereas at another site, new sediments did not alter the direct and indirect effects of invertebrates (Nicon aestuariensis, Macropthalmus hirtipes, and A. crenata) on microalgae. From nutrient addition experiments it was clear that benthic microalgae were able to use nutrients from within both old and new sediments equally. This implied that microalgae were reducing legacy nutrients in both sediments, and that they are
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!
The two nice trees in the front of my old property (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 this drive were numbers 17, 19 and 21 (still occupied b...
A video of interviews with four enterprising young Christchurch residents recorded two years after the 22 February 2011 earthquake. The video includes interviews with Gap Filler Director Coralie Winn, Arts Centre Director Andrew Lovatt, artist Mike Hewson, and Student Volunteer Army leader Jason Pembleton. The interviewees are asked four questions: 'What do you think Christchurch city centre will look like in 10 years?', 'What do you most want to see in the new city?', 'What do you miss most about the old city?', and 'What keeps you in Christchurch?'.
Back in 2011, a slightly rusty three speed bike abandoned after the September earthquake on a demolition site in Christchurch caught the attention of John Smithies. He's 72, only slightly older than the bike, and he decided it would be just the bicycle to take on a epic, 2000 kilometre journey from Cape Reinga to Bluff. He started in September and expects to reach Bluff on Friday. He's making the epic journey in memory of his wife, Alison who died two years ago of a form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The ride down State Highway One is raising money for leukemia and blood cancer.
Shows a group of snails working on the rebuild of Christchurch. Refers to the slow pace of recovery after February 2011 earthquake in Canterbury. Quantity: 1 digital cartoon(s).
Cultural heritage is a dynamic concept, incorporating the ideas and values of many different organisations and individuals; it is heavily dependent on the context of the item or site being conserved, and transforms something from an old article into a historically significant object. A formal definition of cultural heritage did not appear in the Antarctic Treaty System until 1995, however Antarctic heritage value has been applied to various sites and monuments since the inception of the Treaty, from Shackleton’s Nimrod Hut to a heavy tractor. This report examines a number of case studies to determine the various ways in which heritage items and sites can be managed – such as the removal of the South Pole Dome – as well as their conservation after natural disasters, for instance the Christchurch earthquakes.