Loess & Bee-eaters VII: Poland; South-East Poland; near Przemysl; near Sandomierz

Sepiol, B., Dudzik, K.,  Mandziak, M.  2012.  Breeding population of the European bee-eater Merops apiaster in the Sandomierz Upland 2001-2012. Naturalia 1, 71-86 (in Polish, English summary)
"all the nests were located in loess banks."

 

Loess & Bee-eaters VI: the European Bee-eater (Merops apiaster) in Hungary... + the Loess in Hungary

Gyuracz, J., Nagy, K., Fuisz, T.I., Kareza, Zs., Szep, T.  2013.  European Bee-eater (Merops apiaster Linnaeus 1758) in Hungary: a review.  Ornis Hungarica 21, 1-22

Kerenyi, Z., Ivok, E.  2013.  Nestsite characteristics of the European Bee-eater (Merops apiaster L) in the Godollo Hills.  Ornis Hungarica 21, 23-32.

Urban, S., Turi, K., Vas, Z., Fuisz, T.I.,  2013.  A successful habitat reconstruction effort, the short history of the European Bee-eater (merops apiaster) colony at Albertirsa (Hungary).  Ornis Hungarica 21, 47-51.

Two maps: Fig.2 shows the distribution of bee-eaters in Hungary- from Gyuracz et al 2013 (the reference listed above); Loess Ground added the colour; its a beautiful and detailed map. The paper shows that there is more of Hungary to be studied from the bee-eater nesting point of view; fig.2 shows bee-eaters in the regions that have been studied.
Fig.4 is a rather less detailed and stylish map- its an old map, from Smalley & Leach 1978, and it hints at loess distribution in Hungary. S & L did not have access to a proper detailed loess map of Hungary; the regions D3 and D4 belong to the outline (emphasize outline) distribution of loess in the Danube Basin and related parts of East-Central Europe. In retrospect its a rather absurd description of the distribution of loess- but actually its not that bad.

Abb.8 is the slightly enhanced map of loess in Hungary from Scheidig 1934. The loess shown by Scheidig and the bee-eater zones of Gyuracz et al do show a good correlation. Hungary must be close to some sort of northern limit for bee-eater nesting; the reports of bee-eaters in Poland and the Czech Republic are not reports of large well established populations; in Hungary there are substantial numbers.

"The 27 colourful & morphologically uniform species of the Meropidae family are divided into 3 genera. The 3 species belonging to the Nyctiornis (2 species) and Meropogon (1 specie) genera are confined to the Far East, from the Himalayan Mountains to the Sulawesi; while the 24 species of the Merops genus can be divided into 2 biogeographical and ecological species clade on the basis of phylogenetic analysis.." (Gyuracz et al 2013)

The Meropidae

Loess & Bee-eaters V: Long rivers, silty banks, material from High Asia: a South-East Asian perspective.

The Loess & Bee-eaters project is developing. Bee-eater birds (family Meropidae) like to nest in loess tunnels- a study of this aspect of their behaviour should throw some light on the nature of loess ground and on the behaviour of the birds. Soil Mechanics meets Ornithology- under the blanket of Quaternary Studies and Geography. Four parts so far: part one deals with the European Bee-eater (Merops apiaster) and is largely focussed on soil properties and the implications of the Heneberg Compromise: part two deals with the 15N band of Africa and the Northern Carmine Bee-eater (Merops nubicus): part three is set on the Indian sub-continent, and part four is in Australia. The science possibly becomes a bit dilute as the sequence progresses and the stories become more speculative and discursive. Now, for a moment, we look at bee-eaters in south-east Asia. We start with the Alekseev-Dodonov map, with some critical rivers emphasised:

The red rivers carry silt away from High Asia to form bank deposits and delta deposits. Some rivers carry silt away from High Asia to form loess deposits. River transportation and loess deposit formation are related. A question: is the river silt available to bee-eaters in the same way that loess silt is available, and sought after?  How does the delivery of large amounts of silt into S.E.Asia influence the nesting of the bee-eaters?  This map, Loess Letter Map 2, is the famous map by Alekseev & Dodonov 1989- its main purpose was to show the position of the loess in China, but it serves the wider purpose of showing High Asia and associated rivers.

Pictures from Assallay et al (1998) and C.H.Fry (1984). The Assallay picture shows High Asia (it was based on the Alekseev-Dodonov map above)- the rivers indicated carry silt away from High Asia; the ones of immediate concern are rivers 8 and 9: the Irrawaddy and the Mekong. The local conditions inhibit loess deposit formation; the silt goes into bank deposits and delta deposits. So, abundant silt in S.E.Asia.
The Fry picture shows bee-eater nesting across Africa and Asia; not all bee-eaters- these are the data for the Little Green Bee-eater (Merops orientalis); 8 is Merops orientalis ferrugeiceps. Question: does the presence of High-Asia silt facilitate the nesting of the Little Gree Bee-eater in S.E.Asia?
The Little Green Bee-eater is perhaps not the best species to focus on in a study of the relationship of birds to ground. This is the smallest of the Bee-eaters (about the size of a sparrow) and it may be that its small size allows it to nest in grounds which are inaccessible to larger birds- as the Fry figure shows, it does have a wide distribution. No question of this bird being restricted to loess.

Glacial Loess: revisited, reviewed, reconsidered

Matti Seppala (2004, p.213) wrote that " Smalley (1966) proposed that glacial grinding provided loess material and the idea was supported by Boulton (1978, p.796)." Another sentence from Seppala (2004, P.117) "Butzer (1965) defined loess according to its origin as two types (1) periglacial loess, deflated from outwash deposits, from freshly exposed till, and from barren rock and tundra surfaces, and (2) desert or continental loess originated from desert areas."
What Butzer was saying was that loess material for loess deposits came from periglacial regions and desert regions. This is actually quite a reasonable statement provided that one realises that the loess material may have been introduced into the periglacial or desert areas- the actual source of the particles, the place where the particles were made, may be elsewhere. There have been long years of confusion when it was thought that material for desert loess deposits had to be made in the desert- rather than being simply stored there, or passing through. The loess derived from the Central Asian deserts is made in the mountains of High Asia, probably by the action of mountain glaciers.

The Butzer (1965) work was quoted by Smalley (1966). What Smalley (1966) did not quote or cite was Hardcastle (1889), a paper in which an approach to glacial loess was offered which was remarkably similar to that produced 70+ years later. Hardcastle pointed directly to the problem of producing loess material, and offered a solution in the form of the cold phase glaciers.

This blog is about two aspects of glacial loess; about the possibility that the loess in Western Pomerania, in Poland, is glacial loess; and about the results of some experiments with a Janet Wright (1995) glacier machine(in which the formation of loess stuff can be modelled).

Is the loess in Western Pomerania distinctive?  The map suggests that the material is glacial material, deposited by glaciers across mid-Poland, and then transported by west flowing rivers into the region of W.Pomerania- to form a loess deposit. In the simple deterministic view of loess formation this looks reasonable. Observations on the ground (vide KI) may support this contention.

The deformation results(vide KOHD et al) show the response of sand to shear stress in a Janet Wright (1995) glacier machine. This machine is a modified Bromhead ring shear testing machine, designed initially to test the shear strength of clay soils. It makes a passably acceptable model glacier- via a few simple modifications. The figure shows a typical result of sand deformation; the sample is placed in an annular chamber and a continuous stress can be applied. The height (thickness) of the specimen is measured (vertical axis in figure). The stress set up can be adjusted to be similar to that found in a real glacier system. Long term tests are possible (in figure up to 24 hours)- as the test proceeds the sand deforms. The stages can be explained: stage one is simple dilatancy- when a cohesionless granular material is sheared it expands (this was the basis of the Smalley-Unwin drumlin forming model). Then the macro-defects are activated, any major cracks in the sand grains allow rapid breakage so system height reduces quickly- this is stage 2. Stage 3 is the critical stage when the internal defects in the quartz particles are activated and silt sized material is produced. Here are the Moss defects controlling the size of loess particles. At the end of stage 3 material for a loess deposit has been produced. This is the key to the size of particles in loess deposits. The mode particle- the coarse silt sized quartz particle is controlled in terms of size and production by the defects in the quartz particles derived from the initial granitic rocks.

Seppala, M.  2004.  Wind as a Geomorphic Agent in Cold Climates.   Cambridge University Press 358 p.

Loess in the Channel Islands

The New INQUA Loess Map of Europe- launched at the Kukla LoessFest'14 Conference in Wroclaw, Poland on 10 September 2014. The aim is to carry on with the INQUA Loess Map of Europe. The original loess map was part of the programme of the INQUA Loess Commission; an initiative by Julius Fink and Gunter Haase and other members of the Commission. Work on the Loess Map started in the early 1960s and reached a sort of conclusion in 2007 when a Europe-wide map was published. Now the plan is to add to this map via local sketch maps, to add local knowledge and personal experience- a project suited to the computer age. Based initially in Novi Sad & Wroclaw & Leicester. There will be a dedicated Facebook page (in addition to the Loess Appreciation Group) and material can also be published on Loess Ground Blog.  Here is an initial contribution: a loess map of Jersey- by Jean-Paul Lautridou. Go to LL16 at www.loessletter.msu.edu to see more details of the J-PL presentation. Go to the LAG fb page for a brilliant Scheidig map of Hungary.

Soergel in Silesia

Wolfgang Soergel, noted loess scholar, was a professor in Wroclaw from 1926 to 1931. He was one of the noted pioneers of loess stratigraphy- his book 'Losse, Eiszeiten und Palaolithische Kulturen (Eine Gliederung und Alterbestimmung der Losse) was published in Jena in 1919- this book made a huge contribution to the development of loess stratigraphy, and is largely why Soergel is remembered and honoured. This small tribute is published on the occasion of the Loess Conference in Wroclaw 8-9 September 2014. A tribute to WS and to the University of Wroclaw.

Thermogravimetry: Homage to Honda

In 1915- the first thermobalance; we salute Kotara Hondo- the inventor. We should be better acquainted with thermobalances- thermogravimetric analysis is neglected in loess world..

SILC: The South Island Loess Cores project 1971

There is uncertainty here. The South Island Loess Project was a long time ago and only fragmentary records have survived. Here we try to pull together some useful material and indicate where the findings and the aims of the SILC might still be relevant and useful. In 1973 the INQUA Congress was in New Zealand and as part of the preparations for this Congress the New Zealand Soil Bureau set out to examine the loess deposits in the South Island. Now the NZ loess is interesting and fairly widespread but it definitely lacks signals to facilitate stratigraphic examinations, and there are not many good exposures. A coring progamme was undertaken to provide a set of samples on which careful stratigraphic examinations could be carried out- possibly using slightly unconventional methods. We think that Mike Leamy initiated this coring programme and that Ken Birrell had a major involvement; the start date is believed to be 1971. Eight sites were chosen:

1.  Barry's Bay  S94  234277  dated 051071

1A Barrhill  S82  305406

2.  Claremont  S111  683496

3.  Darling's Property  S111  766479

4.  Awamoko  S127  578132

5.  Romahapa  S179  518132

6.  Pukerau  S170  976415

7.  Stewart's Claim  S161 921619

Sites 2 and 3 were fairly close to Timaru, and sites 5,6 and 7 not too far from Dunedin/Gore. Site 4 was south of the Waitaki River, quite near to Oamaru. Sites 1 and 1A were the most northerly, in the vicinity of Christchurch.

Cyril W.Childs  1975  Distributions of elements in two New Zealand Quaternary Loess columns. in Quaternary Studies: Selected Papers from 9th INQUA Congress Christchurch New Zealand 2-10 December 1973. ed. R.P.Suggate and M.M.Cresswell, pp. 95 - 99.

Element distributions for K, Ca and Ti  in the Claremont no.1 column. Stratigraphic layer numbers and morphological horizon designations are given at the top of the figure. The error bars represent estimates of the uncertainty in the values for each element. Note that the Claremont column is in the loess near Timaru.

Mackenzie Country

Mackenzie Country: the Mackenzie basin in South Canterbury, New Zealand.  An elliptical intermontane basin located in Mackenzie and Waitaki districts; about 100 km long N-S, and about 45 km wide E-W. The Southern Alps constitute its western edge. Named for James McKenzie a notable Scottish sheep thief (not many places get named after stealers of sheep). Lakes Ohau, Pukaki, Alexandrina and Tekapo lie within the Mackenzie basin, as do the artificial hydroelectric lakes of Ruataniwa, Benmore and Aviemore.

John Hardcastle considers the Mackenzie lakes on p.53 of his 'Notes on the Geology of South Canterbury'- in particular he looks at the two large lakes of Pukaki and Tekapo. These are large glacial lakes impounded by morainic dams. The moraines show interesting differences:
"A cursory examination of the Tekapo and Pukaki dams shows that they were not (blog emphasis) built up in the same manner or under the same conditions. Both were undoubtedly glacier-built, but while the Pukaki dam would be recognised as glacial anywhere, the Tekapo dam, were it not for its relation to the lake, its irregularity of surface, some moraine blocks and some patches of glacier silt upon its surface, would not be recognized as glacial. Both dams were cut down into by the rivers that drain the lakes, and the cliffs of the Pukaki show a large proportion of angular material, small and large (but with no large moraine blocks), generally showing some horizontal stratification, and all densely compacted with glacier silt. The Tekapo sections, on the other hand, show only well rounded material , evidently water laid, and not compacted with silt; containing little or no silt in fact. It is an important fact too that where the river leaves the steep and high cliffs of the dam for the lower plain, the older red gravel formation comes up into view.
The total quantity of material brought down from the mountains and piled up in these dams is enormous. The Pukaki dam is much the larger of the two, but the smaller Tekapo dam is so large as to imply the operation of frost in the Alps, and the transport by ice and water for many thousands of years."

John Hardcastle finds a Drumlin

It is generally believed that there are no drumlins in New Zealand; John Hardcastle claimed to have found one:

"It is familiar knowledge that the Mackenzie lakes have been occupied by great glaciers, whose huge terminal moraines form a series of irregular mounds, stretching for miles across the front of each lake, and serving as dams holding up these fine sheets of water. The Tasman glacier of today is about 18 miles in length; the glacier that filled the Tasman valley and Pukaki lake was about 50 miles long, and proportionately wide. And those of Tekapo, Ohau and Ahurri were proportionately large. Yet these glaciers were small, their moraines diminutive, compared to those of the Great Glacier Age. These do not appear to have left any 'terminal' moraines, such as we see in the lake dams, but some of their massive longitudinal moraines remain, eloquent witnesses to the vastness of the ice streams that piled them.
They are high and bulky ridges margining the valleys, and stretching down the middle of the original bottom of the plain. They have the form that English and American glacialists have agreed to call adfter a Scottish term, 'drumlins' - long, straight, elliptical ridges, with a steep side towards the valley in which flowed the glacier that built them up. A very clearly defined one lies along the foot of the range below Lake Tekapo, from where Edwards Creek comes out of the hills to a point overlooking the lake."   JH 1908.

Moas by Aaron Woodruff

John Hardcastle and the Canterbury Plains

A question:  Why are the Canterbury Plains so flat?  Professor Hutton argued that it was due to the action of the sea.

John Hardcastle wrote on the Canterbury Plains at some length; the southern plains push down into his region of South Canterbury.

"King Frost resumed his reign over Southern New Zealand. Once more the action of severe frosts in the mountains caused the rivers to be overladen with shingle, and a new set of fans was spread out over the old red gravel plain, where this had not been ridged up into hills and downs above the reach of rivers. The fans thus laid down...   form the plains of today, with the connected level fillings of wide mountain valleys."

"The most remarkable feature of the Canterbury plains, I think, is the smoothness of their surface. There is nothing in our experience of river action today to explain that smoothness, which, even where the material is a coarse shingle, as on the upper Rangitata plain, required no pick and shovel work to make a track to drive a coach over. 'Old riverbeds' have not this smoothness, and the Mackenzie plain has quite a mottled appearance from the unevenness of its surface. The plains were undoubtedly laid down by rivers, but only a great sweeping rush of water could have smoothed out the current corrugations so completely. Was this a result of the Great Thaw? I think not."
 

John Hardcastle and the Sands of Caroline Bay

John Hardcastle  1904  Caroline Bay: How the sand comes in.  Timaru Herald 24 September 1904

"The transformation of the southern side of Caroline Bay, from a bay of moderately deep water, margined by a narrow beach of travelling shingle upon a rocky bottom, to a broad, gently sloping and continually growing deposit of sand- from a fishing ground  and a frequent scene of wrecks and strandings, into a favourite bathing ground and site for shrubberies and a band rotunda, is a truly remarkable phenomenon, with many curious minor details.

One striking feature of the sand deposited in the bay is its remarkable evenness of grain; it is perfectly sorted, from finer sand or coarser silt. By what means is the sand so delicately weighed, brought into the bay and left there? And how and where did it all originate?"


John Hardcastle  1913  Caroline Bay: How the sand comes in: a problem and its solution.  Timaru Herald 17 December 1913

The attractive features of Caroline Bay are so numerous and so varied that persons of widely different tastes find there something to interest or please. The sea, with its freshness and infinite variety, the all-the-year-round  verdancy of lawn and shrubbery, cliff shroud of ice plant, the chromatic gamut of the flower beds, the picturesque buildings and quaint line of dressing boxes, the smooth softness of dry sand the delight of infancy, the firm footing of the tide-wetted sand that makes a peerless promenade, the beautiful freshness of ozonised sea air, the enjoyment of the holiday feeling, even for the space of minutes, as one passes along the cool beach to or from business in the dinner hour, the sense of thankfulness that so near to the scene of one's daily toil and worries one can get away from them, the pleasure of sympathising with the pleasure of others- these things are among the many that make Caroline Bay what it is so reasonably claimed to be- Timaru's best asset."

John Hardcastle on the Moon

John Hardcastle 1917  Lunar Theories: The motions of the Moon in her solar orbit.  Timaru Herald  11 July 1917  p.3

John Hardcastle 1917  Lunar Theories: the second motion, swing in latitude.  Timaru Herald 16 July 1917  p.2


"Seeing recently... in Flammarion's 'Popular Astronomy' his diagram representing the courses of the earth and moon around the sun as long-drawn-out wavy lines, crossing and recrossing each other, with his accompanying statement that the course of the moon is everywhere concave to the sun, the humorous idea occurred to me that the motions of the earth and moon resembled those of two cyclists alternately 'pacing' each other round an enormously long and narrow racing track. Such motions are entirely different from those usually ascribed to these bodies- the earth circling round the sun in an elliptical orbit, and the moon, so to speak, 'running rings round', the earth in a smaller elliptical orbit. Struck by this difference of ideas, I set about enquiring whether the motions of the moon have been treated by anyone from the heliocentric or any other extra-terrestrial point of view; looking upon earth and moon not as planet and satellite but as a pair of planets travelling round the sun in company, and changing places as leader and follower under the influence of their mutual gravitation."

The basic idea, which JH expresses eloquently, is that the gravitational attraction between the moon and the sun is more significant than the gravitational attraction between the moon and the earth. Earth and moon are not planet and satellite but are a twin planet. This might be another first for JH; this could be the first time that the earth-moon system has been considered as a double planet. The idea was nicely explored in the 1960s by Isaac Asimov in an essay in 'The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction' which, despite its name published quite a lot of serious and genuine science. Asimov, assisted by Isaac Newton, compared gravitational attractions between planets and satellites in the solar system; the simple equation f  =  mass1 x mass2/ distance squared  can be applied with interesting results. Asimov showed how the planets of the solar system dominate their satellites- with the exception of the earth-moon system, where this is not the case. JH develops this idea in two long articles in his journal of choice- the Timaru Herald (and subsequently in the Scientific American for 1919).

"Reverting to the cyclists 'pacing' motion...  Luna does some pacing, and Tellus feebly responds to the invitation to 'come on', but when Luna has dropped back to the rear to give Tellus his turn, he also slows down. Tellus in fact, maintains an almost even pace in the middle of the track. Luna races up, passes on the right, gets ahead a little, then slows down, and, observing the rule of the road [in NZ] allows Tellus to pass her, and she falls back as far to the rear as she had previously been ahead.
That it is not a case of Luna 'running rings round' Tellus will be seen from the fact that the proportions of their monthly course may be likened to a cycle track, slightly curved, two miles long, and, to give plenty of room, 120 ft wide, on which two cyclists travel together. One of them, the bigger, Tellus, has a start of 60ft, and rides in the middle of the track all the way. The iother, Luna, overtakes Tellus at the half-mile, and having swung out to the right-hsand side of the track passes him. At the end of a mile Luna is 60ft ahead of Tellus, and in the middle of the track. In the second mile Luna slackens her pace, swings across to the inner side of the track, Tellus passes her at the half mile, and at the end of the two miles that represents the month's course, Luna is again 60ft behind Tellus. This is the true order of their going, month after month, as far as concerns the apparent circling of the earth and the phenomena of the phases."

John Hardcastle and the Pink & White Terraces

The connections may be a bit tenuous; but we will attempt to make them. John Hardcastle lived most of his life in the South Island, at Timaru, but in 1886 he was living in Napier in the North Island. He was there when Mount Tarawera erupted- and he was moved to contribute a discussion about the event to the New Zealand Institute. One of the most important consequence of the Tarawera 1886 eruption appears to have been the destruction of the Pink & White terraces. The terraces were a famous landmark and tourist attraction in the volcanic part of the North Island; a series of terraced pools formed by the deposition of minerals from volcanic waters.

John Hardcastle 1888.  The Tarawera eruption, 10th June 1886. A criticism of Professor Hutton's (and others') explanations of the cause of the eruption.  Transactions & Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute 20, 277-282.

The Tarawera discussions did not touch on the phenomenon of the Pink & White terraces- that came much later and from an unexpected direction. Robin Wooding(1926-2007) was a very talented scientist, and a grandson of John Hardcastle. He had a long and distinguished career with CSIRO in Australia and DSIR in New Zealand.  He was interested in some observations that JH had made on the Mueller glacier. JH had noticed that a stream issuing from the glacier carried ice particles with it that made a dam trapping a pool of water. The formation of the ice dam retaining the glacial water had certain similarities to the formation of the pool walls in the pink & white terraces, holding back the volcanic waters. Here was a possible mechanism for the formation of the pink & white terraces; perhaps the ice model fitted with the volcanic situation.

John Hardcastle 1920.  Deposition of ice by a glacier spring. New Zealand Journal of Science & Technology  3, 26-28.

We do not know if Robin Wooding finished his appreciation of the JH glacier studies. The mechanism as outlined in the JH paper is realistic, and possibly has not been noted elsewhere. Many of JH's observations have turned out to be original.

Craig T Simmons, D.A.Nield  2009.  The life and work of Robin A.Wooding. Trans.& Porous Media 77, 133-142.

The main areas where Robin Wooding worked were: (1) the discovery of the occurrence of fingers in the context of mono-diffusive convection in a porous medium and an early body of associated papers on convection in porous media, (2) the development of a novel hydraulic model for the catchment-stream problem and (3) the mathematical solution to the problem of steady infiltration from a shallow circular pond that formed the basis for the disc permeameter method. The idea of steady infiltration from a shallow pond brings us round to the pink & white terraces and to JH's observations on the Mueller glacier.

John Hardcastle & the 140 mile beach

John Hardcastle  23 April 1899:   The 140 mile beach: Our great shingle river.  Timaru Herald p4.

"The most remarkable stream in Canterbury is surely that which claims the Rakaia, Ashburton, Rangitata, Orari, Opihi, Pareora, Otaio, Makikihi, Waihao and Waitaki as its tributaries, that stream of boulders, pebbles and sand which flows along the eastern coast for 140 miles or thereabouts; a stream which has neither bed nor bank; on which one may walk dryshod or be drowned, a boat may lie safely or be swamped or wrecked; which flows, not like water but by water; not by gravitation but against it, by fits or starts, both ways by turns, on the surface, and a part of the surface only; whose loss is not by evaporation or percolation but by trituration; - the 140 miles of shingle beach that drifts along, defines, and defends, the coast from Oamaru to Banks' Peninsula.

Each of the rivers above named, when in flood rolls along its bed into the sea smaller or larger quantities of shingle, that has been gradually brought down from every spur and every gully, ridge and cliff, in the country drained by its tributaries, -with a reservation in the case of the Waitaki. The Waitaki delivers the largest loads, but only some of its tributaries contribute to them. The glacier streams which go to form the Tekapo, Pukaki and Ohau, the three chief branches of the Waitaki, are 'silt-trapped' by lakes, and their loads of shingle, enormous ones, do not reach the sea. The sea takes charge of the shingle on delivery, bears away the mud and finer sand and distributes it over its bed, and sets its breakers to work upon the boulders and pebbles, first to heap them up on the shore, and then to ceaselessly beat and pound and grind them together, to reduce them to mud and sand that can be carried in suspension to deep water. Every wave that breaks upon the beach disturbs it more or less."

Raeside loess map

To complement the Hardcastle material; to show the location of Timaru

John Hardcastle & the Moa Hunters

John Hardcastle 1908  Notes on the Geology of South Canterbury.  Timaru Herald  64p.  "There is some rather curious evidence of the early occupation of South Canterbury by man. A popular picnic resort, a few miles above Pleasant Point, is known as Noah's Ark from the number of aboriginal drawings that are seen there, on an overhanging cornice in a limestone rock. These drawings are well preserved, being protected from the weather by the overhanging of the cliff, and they are also protected from destruction by mischievous hands, by being out of reach. When these drawings were made the riverbed must have been at least six feet higher than it is today along the foot of the 'Ark', and this is some feet above the present river...

Relics of a moa-hunters camp existed at the northern end of Dashing Rocks, but they have been nearly all washed away by the sea. There are still some remains of ovens left, with fragments of charred moa bones and flakes of grey siliceous stone in them. The later Maoris must have also camped on the same sopt, as some articles of greenstone have also been found there."


Moa hunters near Timaru. Cave art- wall of Blacklers Cave, Pleasant Point, in the vicinity of Timaru, South Canterbury

John Hardcastle of Timaru

John Hardcastle; aged about 60, or early sixties(above)
A Brad Pillans map of the South Island showing the location of Timaru. Note the basalt volcanics at Timaru- and nowhere else in the South Island

Depressions in Loess Ground; on the Titel Plateau, and at Timaru in South Canterbury NZ

Christian Zeeden, Michael Hark, Ulrich Hambach, Slobodan B. Markovic, Ludwig Zoeller  2007
Depressions on the Titel Loess Plateau: Form-Pattern-Genesis.  Geographica Pannonica 11, 4-8.

These depressions are fairly shallow, maybe up to 4m in depth; perhaps 50, 100, 200m wide- shallow bowl-like depressions on/in the loess ground surface. Investigated by Zeeden et al- who hint at formation aided by some dissolution processes. One wonders if there might be selective and localised hydrocollapse going on. The Titel depressions have a preferred northwest-southeast orientation which obviously could be significant. To investigate loess hollows more examples are required.. and the ancient literature may have revealed one. John Hardcastle, discussing the Timaru loess in his 'Notes on the Geology of South Canterbury'(1908) mentions some depressions which sound remarkably like the Titel depressions. He gives few details but hopefully some investigations can be launched. There does not appear to be any obvious reason why the Titel and Timaru loess deposits should not be very similar.

JH in NZ: Loessic intimations of John Hardcastle

JH in NZ: Loessic intimations of John Hardcastle

John Hardcastle (1847-1927) was born in Yorkshire, England. There is some dispute about whether he was born in Beverley, or in Wakefield;  East Riding vs.West Riding. Wakefield is probably right. He went to New Zealand as a child and spent much of his life at Timaru, on the east coast of the South Island. He spent many years associated with the Timaru Herald newspaper. He was a scholar and a scientist and in the years 1889-1890 published two very significant papers on loess.(see Smalley et al.2001).
He had access to the Dashing Rocks section at Timaru, described by J.D.Raeside as the chief candidate to be the type section of the NZ loess. JH was a meticulous field scientist and he recorded his observations on the loess in his papers in the Transactions and Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute. He was a member of the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury, part of the NZ Institute, which met in Christchurch, not too far from Timaru.

His 1890 paper was the first to point out that loess could act as a 'climate register' - the loess contained a record of the changing climate. This must have been one of the first real observations in the science of palaeoclimatology. These climatic observations are being recognized but it is becoming apparent that some other of his observations and considerations deserve to be more fully examined. In the 1889 paper he examined the processes of loess deposit formation and he was the first to propose the breaking down of the process into defineable stages or events. This was not proposed again until 1966, and is still being refined. The event sequence P1T1D1T2D2 should be named the Hardcastle sequence- this is the default sequence for the formation of a basic loess deposit.
P1  formation of material by cold processes in mountains
T1  transportation of material by rivers
D1 deposition on flood plains
T2  aeolian transportation of loess material
D2 formation of open structured metastable loess deposit

This sequence works well for the Timaru loess, with the Southern Alps providing the P1 provenance action. JH was perceptive at the P1 level and was probably the first to emphasize the role of glacial action in loess formation. He reported climatic effects recorded in the loess and in the course of doing so made the first description of a fragipan horizon. The fragipan is a hard, diagnostic soil horizon, associated with loess deposits and essentially named and defined by Guy Smith around 1948. Smith defined it but JH had already provided a beautiful description; the fragipans at Dashing Rocks are impressive and accessible. This first fragipan description should be recognized. JH was also very perceptive on the observation of bird crop stones distributed in the loess; he felt that these had stratigraphic and climatic value- and this is a topic which has not been fully explored even now. Perhaps more pertinent in NZ because moa crop stones are observed and these could offer useful information in various fields.

The Timaru loess should be recognized as a very significant deposit; steps should be taken to preserve and appreciate it. This could be a major geoheritage/geotourism site. The site should be recognized and so should John Hardcastle.  He had an annus mirabilis in 1889-1890 and wrote two brilliant papers which unfortunately were not appreciated at the time Albert Einstein had an annus mirabilis in 1905 and the papers he wrote changed the world. That short burst of brilliance perhaps characterises the outstanding scholar and JH should certainly be seen as outstanding, and given much credit in the development of loess science.

Fagg, R. 2001. John Hardcastle (1847-1927) A gifted amateur.  Geological Society of New Zealand Historical Studies Group Newsletter 22, 21-25.

Smalley, I.J.  1983.  John Hardcastle on glacier motion and glacial loess.  Journal of Glaciology 29, 480-484.

Smalley, I.J., Jefferson, I.F., Dijkstra, T.A., Derbyshire, E.  2001.  Some major events in the development of the scientific study of loess.  Earth Science Reviews 54, 5-18.