Hydrology of New Zealand

Physical map of water ways 

New Zealand is covered in approximately 180000 kilometers of mapped rivers and 3820 lakes with a surface area of a Hectare or larger. The country also used to be covered in large sums of wetlands.  These are caused when the ground is over saturated with water causing the surplus of ground water to become visible on land. These wet lands though are endangered because of heavy draining for farming with only 2% of it being left. There are two large bodies of water that occur on the Islands there is Lake Taupo on the North Island, and Lake Te Anau on the southern.

Lake Taupo

Lake Taupo is the largest lake in the entire country with a surface area of 616 square kilometers.  With the eruption of 186 A.D. and the   collapse of the Taupo caldera Lake Taupo was formed.  The formation and rapid filling plus the eruption of the super volcano the biggest Outwash flood occurred in the country's history. An Outwash is a flood usually from glaciers or volcanic activity.  They contain large amounts of sediment that has moved with the water from either the glacier or the water source in this case the lake. 

Sutherland Falls

This country is also well known for its large amounts of rivers and because its is a mountainous region on both the Northern and Southern Island's it has many waterfalls.  This is the result of the soil being unable to absorb more water so the water is able to flow in a process called overland flow.  Add that with the topography and gravitational water occurs as waterfalls.  The country's largest waterfall is on Southern Island called Sutherland Falls.





This is work cited if it blocks my other one again.

http://easybib.com/public/list/key/f9309c

Works Cited

Lake Taupo. Digital image. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Oct. 2012. <http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/38/Lake_taupo_landsat.jpg>.

"New Zealand Physical Map." By Maps.com from Maps.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Oct. 2012. <http://www.maps.com/ref_map.aspx?pid=12228>.

"Outwash Plain." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 30 Sept. 2012. Web. 11 Oct. 2012. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outwash_plain>.

"Sutherland Falls (Fiordland, South Island, New Zealand)." Sutherland Falls (Fiordland, South Island, New Zealand). N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Oct. 2012. <http://www.world-of-waterfalls.com/new-zealand-sutherland-falls.html>.

"Wetlands of New Zealand." Wetlands of New Zealand. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Oct. 2012. <http://www.wetlands.co.nz/>.

"What Causes Wetlands to Form? - Curiosity." Curiosity. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Oct. 2012. <http://curiosity.discovery.com/question/what-causes-wetlands-form>.

 

New Zealand is an interesting country for a couple of reasons. Not only is it extremely biodiverse because of its extreme remoteness but because of the way the plates move that it is situated on it has so interesting geographical features. Because it sits on two plates that converge it has a large mountain range called the Southern Alp’s on its southern island.

While on the Second Island there sits a super volcano. The Caldera is called Taupo volcano and because of past major eruptions from it a large portions of the rocks and Plateau is of volcanic materials. Taupo has erupted multiple times in history and because it is a Rhyolite Caldera its eruptions are very large and explosive. Its most recent eruption happened approximately 22,600 years ago, and it created approximately 1170 cubic kilometers of tephra. Now in the crater created by its eruptions sits Lake Taupo. Also on the Northern Island is Mount Raupehu which is its largest mountain and a cone volcano. This Volcano though is considered to be a weaker type though because its eruptive material has a lower viscosity.

Works Cited

"Fire Earth." Greece «. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Sept. 2012. <http://feww.wordpress.com/tag/greece/>.

"Global Volcanism Program | Taupo | Summary." Global Volcanism Program | Taupo | Summary. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Sept. 2012. <http://www.volcano.si.edu/world/volcano.cfm?vnum=0401-07=>.

"Mt Cook Southern Alps Lake Pukaki Scenery Canterbury New ZealandPhoto & Vacation Spot." Mt Cook Southern Alps Lake Pukaki Scenery Canterbury New Zealand. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Sept. 2012. <http://www.new-zealand-pictures.co.nz/photo/mt-cook-southern-alps-lake-pukaki-scenery-canterbury-new-zealand-2233.htm>.

"New Zealand Geography." New Zealand Geography. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Sept. 2012. <http://www.new-zealand-nz.net/geography.html>.

Hello my name is Adam Shotts I am currently in my junior year of college at the University of Colorado Denver. For this assignment I have chosen to look at the physical geography of New Zealand. I have chosen to look at this place for a couple of reasons. One being I am interested with it’s amazing physical geography. The area has is known for its involvements in movies because of its mountain ranges and dense foggy forest that reminds people of a more primitive time. The other reason why I have chosen this place is because of my desires to go there and experience it for myself. There is so much to do there like hunting red stags which is a dream of mine to get the opportunity to do but not only that it also has such a rich range of different animal life forms that you can’t see any where else. These things make me wonder how if anything physically or climate wise changed in that country what could possibly happen to the New Zealand of today.