Awesome Forces
New Zealand is a young and active land, from a geologist’s point of view. Awesome Forces shows how plate tectonics, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and erosion have shaped one of the most dynamic landscapes in the world.
Starting with a model of the Earth’s interior, the exhibition explains the forces that change the surface of the globe. It shows New Zealand’s position astride two mighty tectonic plates, and explains how the movement of the plates is measured.
Starting with a model of the Earth’s interior, the exhibition explains the forces that change the surface of the globe. It shows New Zealand’s position astride two mighty tectonic plates, and explains how the movement of the plates is measured.
A video describes New Zealand’s split from the supercontinent Gondwanaland 85 million years ago. It also presents geological evidence that the ancestors of New Zealand's unique fauna and flora may have travelled on the New Zealand 'continent' when it split from Gondwanaland. These biological treasures, both living and extinct, include the flightless moa, the tuatara – a dinosaur-age reptile – insects such as wētā, and giant land snails.
New Zealand's seismic activity and volcanic eruptions, and their effects on people and the land, are brought to life through large screen projections, animations, a shake-house simulating an earthquake, and interactives including a seismic station. The effects of rainfall and extreme weather events – by-products of New Zealand's unique location – are also demonstrated.
Objects I might be interested in:
Objects I might be interested in:
Moa
Blood Earth Fire
Blood Earth Fire will take the audience on an extraordinary journey of discovery through the changing landscape of Aotearoa New Zealand. The changes have been dramatic and are dramatically presented. They will be confronted by the mass of ‘alien’ species that humans brought to this land.
Audience can explore the teeming communities of plants and animals that existed here shortly before people arrived. Meet the stout-legged moa, the adzebill, and the laughing owl while listening to how the dawn chorus of a thousand years ago may have sounded.
Objects I might be interested in:
The stout-legged moa, Euryapteryx geranoides, was a mid-sized bird at home in forest fringes and scrublands. A considerable amount of fossilised remains of stout-legged moa exist due to the good preservation properties of their habitat and the frequency with which they turn up in Maori middens.
This gave exhibition researchers for Blood, Earth, Fire – Whangai, Whenua, Ahi Kaand model makers of the stout-legged moa plenty to work with when reconstructing the species. The approach they took was essentially a forensic reconstruction. Every bone of the moa was studied in detail, for articulation (the way the bones fit together) and for muscle attachment.
Studying the way the bones would have articulated allowed researchers to look at the birds’ posture. It turns out that moa did not stand tall like an ostrich – the way they are most often pictured. Instead, they were long, with their heads and necks reaching out directly in front of their bodies. This ‘hunchback’ posture meant moa could not have browsed the tops of trees as was previously thought, but fed on undergrowth.
Looking at where the muscles once attached to the bones, researchers could get an idea of how stocky the bird was. This stout-legged moa species was surprisingly heavily built – much more so than the other species we know about. From new genetic analysis, researchers also know that the females weighed about twice as much as males, making them very big ‘girls’ indeed.
The model makers also took incredible care with the face, first measuring the fragile skulls in Te Papa’s collection room and then recreating them in plasticine (modelling clay). Once this step was finished, they went back to their workshop and began the painstaking process of ‘fleshing out’ the model with more plasticine where muscles would have been on the head.
The skin texture was modelled either by taking impressions from mummified moa (in the case of the feet) or by referring back to the moa’s closest living relatives, the cassowary and emu.
Te Papa is fortunate enough to have some moa feathers in its collection, probably over a thousand years old. From these, the model makers were able to dye emu feathers to give them the right look before carefully applying them to the finished model.
Resources: http://www.tepapa.govt.nz/WhatsOn/exhibitions/Pages/AwesomeForces.aspx
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