Just-released maps have revealed hundreds of ancient landslides around Pukekohe, while offering a multi-dimensional view of the region’s active faults and volcanic features. Capturing more than 830 square kilometres, from Manukau Harbour’s southern shoreline to the lower Waikato River, the new GNS Science-produced maps show Auckland’s rolling southern landscapes as they’ve never been seen. It was when scientists were building the maps, using light detecting and ranging (Lidar) data capturing detailed information on local land surfaces, that they uncovered evidence of some 800 previously-unidentified landslide sites. “The sheer number of large landslides that captured in the Lidar data was interesting,” GNS senior geologist Dr Kyle Bland said. The freshly-defined landslides would be added to local and national databases used to inform planning, he said. Although faults in this area weren’t new to scientists, most had been only inferred until now - and this was the first time they’d been mapped at the modern land surface, in high detail.
