[Ag-eq] {Spam?} From Your "Shaky Isles" reporter

[Jewel]

Wellington, our capital city, though not our largest:
that honour goes to Auckland, where a third of New Zealand's  entire population live, sits right on 
top of a major fault, and one day, and who knows when that day will come, but come it, surely, 
will, awaits a

catastrophic earthquake, an earthquake which could have a magnitude far beyond  that of 
Christchurch's 6.3, or Hamner's

readjusted to 7.8.
Wellington is, perhaps 200 miles from Hamner, nevertheless, it has received some significant damage 
and several buildings

are going to be pulled down as they are in a dangerous condition and could collapse the next time 
Wellington gets all shook

up.!
If the epicentre had been, virtually, under Wellington's foundations  as it was with Christchurch, 
the damage would have

been of huge proportions, so the wake-up alarm of November 14 should have given Wellingtonians and 
the civil authorities

something to think about as it is obvious that much needs to be done if the city is to survive when 
the, inevitable,

big'un strikes.
Speaking of the Cook Strait fault, let's take a little flight of fancy into Aotearoa's past by 
jumping into our.

conveniently,  waiting Tardus, set the time journey clock for 20,000 years ago, when New Zealand was 
1 island, not the 2

that it now is.
Fortunately, our machine lands on the tippy-tippy-top of the Seaward Kaikoura, and don't be tempted 
to move because of

what is about to happen and that is the overnight creation of what, 20,000 years later came to be 
called, Cook Strait, or

is it Cook's Strait?  I prefer Cook Strait as James Cook bestowed his name upon it because, as far 
as he knew, he was the

first European to sail through it;  however,  his descendants do not hold the title deeds to it as 
would be suggested if it

was Cook's Strait!
Of course, the Maoris had, for hundreds of years, been travelling between the 2 islands in their 
fizz boats!  Disregard the

* fizz boats:  just another flight of fancy!
Anyway, back to the motley.  On, we shall say, Friday, the 13th pick what month and year you like, 
in one cataclysmic

earthquake, the island was split asunder, from coast to coast, in a north westerly/south easterly 
direction, to an average

depth of 500 feet, and 14 miles at its narrowest point.
This valley was, immediately, filled by the raging waters of the South Pacific Ocean on the east 
coast and those of the

Tasman Sea on the west!
Not, technically, part of Cook Strait, but nearby is the Hikurangi Trench which is bounded by the 
Kaikoura peninsula.  The

Hikurangi Trench is about 3,000 feet deep and is the home of a permanent population of sperm whales 
which, other than

fishing, provide the main source of income for the small town:  population of around 3,000.  A 
thriving whale-watching

business is run by the local branch of Naitahu, the extended tribe of the South Island Maori.
Some years ago, the National Geographic magazine sent a team of divers there  to search for the, 
elusive, giant squid, but

they did not find any, but it is deduced that they must be there because they are the favourite prey 
of the sperm whale,

many of whom display the scars of the wounds that were inflicted when coming into contact  with the 
big buggers!


Monday's fun and games stranded many overseas tourists in Kaikoura and the rnzn Canterbury was 
dispatched taking supplies

in and evacuees out.
A cow was rescued from a paddock where she had been grazing, the bulk of which had disappeared in a 
landslide and left the

cow, still grazing?  on a little island in the midst of the wreckage.
On the other hand, a major colony of the protected fur seal was wiped out by a rockfall and as this 
is the height of the

puppy season, the colony was jammed with newborn and young pups.  It is not known how many of the 
seals have survived.
Although there was only a very small tsunami, the seabed was, seriously, disturbed and several tons 
of Paua [abalone] and

other shellfish were torn from the rocks.  Greenpeace and DOC [department of Conservation] divers 
have gone down to find as

many of the living victims as they can and return them to rocks where they can reattach themselves.
I try to get my facts correct, and I apologise for any mistakes that I might have made.
I did a search on Wikipedia for facts on Cook Strait, but I didn't find much of what I asked for, 
such as, the length of

the strait, the width at it widest point and when it was formed etc, but I couldn't find the answers 
I wanted.
They may have been there but as I examined only the first 20 of the 700 links, the majority of which 
were not about * Cook

Strait, even  though I had stipulated that it was * Cook Straight that I wanted.
One interesting little extra that I did find is that the channel that separates Vancouver Island 
from mainland British

Columbia is Queen Charlotte Strait or channel that is an offshoot of Queen Charlotte Sound.  We also 
have a Queen Charlotte

Sound and it is at the head of QCS where Picton is to be found, the southern terminal for the 
inter-island ferry, where

there was enough damage to port facilities for the ferry service to be cancelled.

           Jewel