The town of Lyttelton on Saturday morning (15 August) was thrown into a state of great excitement owing to a most extraordinary rise and fall of the water in the harbour...

Shortly after 4 o’clock this morning the whole of the South and a portion of the North Island was shaken by a violent shock of earthquake, the most severe experienced for more than 20 years...

Earthquakes in Christchurch are not unusual events, we’ve been beset with them since European settlement began – and no doubt long before. What is most disturbing of all is that our European pioneers knew of the danger that stone and brick buildings posed in earthquakes. C

German born colonist, Sir Julius von Haast, was an explorer specialising in geology. Amongst his many achievements was the founding of the Canterbury Museum. Born Johann Franz von Haast in 1822, in Bonn, he studied geology and mineralogy before travelling throughout Europe and Russia,

This photographically produced postcard of Christchurch’s Provincial Government buildings, appearing twisted and warped, was a semi-humorous card sent out at Christmas after the Murchison earthquake in 1929. Titled “The Camera doesn’t lie”,  it was the Commissi

After the September, 1888 earthquake centred in Hanmer caused extensive damage to the Christchurch cathedral, the government geologist, Alexander McKay was sent out to review the land damage. This article, published in an English newspaper, outlines the ‘extraordinary phenomena&

The underlying geological issues hidden beneath Christchurch’s swampy plains meant that the city’s founders and their surveyors who chose this site for their planned city, knew nothing of the dangers. The tranquil flat expanses provided no clues to the benign faults which