Lake Tutira
Encyclopedia
Hawke's Bay
Hawke's Bay is a region of New Zealand. Hawke's Bay is recognised on the world stage for its award-winning wines. The regional council sits in both the cities of Napier and Hastings.-Geography:...
, New Zealand.
Much of the area was surveyed by Herbert Guthrie-Smith
Herbert Guthrie-Smith
William Herbert Guthrie-Smith was a New Zealand farmer, author and conservationist.His book, Tutira: the story of a New Zealand sheep station, published in 1921, documented the impact of humans on New Zealand's environment in an easy reading, non-scientific yet accurate manner.He documented the...
, who farmed 60,000 acres (240 km²) surrounding the lake. Guthrie-Smith, a naturalist
Naturalist
Naturalist may refer to:* Practitioner of natural history* Conservationist* Advocate of naturalism * Naturalist , autobiography-See also:* The American Naturalist, periodical* Naturalism...
, published Tutira: the story of a New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
sheep station in 1921. Today, a camp is run at the site of his homestead.
Sedimentary cores from the lake
Lake
A lake is a body of relatively still fresh or salt water of considerable size, localized in a basin, that is surrounded by land. Lakes are inland and not part of the ocean and therefore are distinct from lagoons, and are larger and deeper than ponds. Lakes can be contrasted with rivers or streams,...
were used to demonstrate that the landslides mobilising sediments for transport
Sediment transport
Sediment transport is the movement of solid particles , typically due to a combination of the force of gravity acting on the sediment, and/or the movement of the fluid in which the sediment is entrained...
into the lake occur in frequency
Frequency
Frequency is the number of occurrences of a repeating event per unit time. It is also referred to as temporal frequency.The period is the duration of one cycle in a repeating event, so the period is the reciprocal of the frequency...
and magnitude
Magnitude (mathematics)
The magnitude of an object in mathematics is its size: a property by which it can be compared as larger or smaller than other objects of the same kind; in technical terms, an ordering of the class of objects to which it belongs....
according to a power law
Power law
A power law is a special kind of mathematical relationship between two quantities. When the frequency of an event varies as a power of some attribute of that event , the frequency is said to follow a power law. For instance, the number of cities having a certain population size is found to vary...
.
Swimming in the lake is possible. Trout fishing is permitted as a stream flows into its northern reaches. For centuries Maori seasonally lived by Lake Tutira and you can see the remains of six pa sites. The Tutira Walkway, ascends to the Table Mountain trig station for stunning views over Hawke's Bay and takes about 5 hours to complete.
Geological history
The lake contains a high-resolution record of the sedimentation since its formation about 6,500 years ago. It has a small catchmentDrainage basin
A drainage basin is an extent or an area of land where surface water from rain and melting snow or ice converges to a single point, usually the exit of the basin, where the waters join another waterbody, such as a river, lake, reservoir, estuary, wetland, sea, or ocean...
area, whose dominant erosion
Erosion
Erosion is when materials are removed from the surface and changed into something else. It only works by hydraulic actions and transport of solids in the natural environment, and leads to the deposition of these materials elsewhere...
mechanism is landsliding
Landslide
A landslide or landslip is a geological phenomenon which includes a wide range of ground movement, such as rockfalls, deep failure of slopes and shallow debris flows, which can occur in offshore, coastal and onshore environments...
; as a result of this, infrequent, large storms account for the bulk of the sedimentary depositional volume; Cyclone Bola
Cyclone Bola
Cyclone Bola was one of the costliest cyclones in the history of New Zealand, causing severe damage as an extratropical cyclone when it passed near the country in March 1988. It formed on February 24 to the north of Fiji, and tracking generally southwestward it reached hurricane-force winds near...
is a particularly important recent example.