AUCKLAND Social Sciences DepartmentThe story of New Zealand's formation starts with ‘Plate Tectonics’. This is a major topic that you will study in depth next year. In simple terms the centre of the earth is very hot and largely molten. The surface of the earth is made up of huge slabs of rock called plates, which make up the continents and ocean floors. These plates ‘float’ on the molten material beneath and slowly move. In some places, called plate boundaries, the earth’s crust (surface layer) is being torn apart, creating great rift valleys with active volcanoes. In other places plates collide, creating great mountain ranges. Where plates slide past each other, earthquakes are the result. Over time, the plates have moved so much that the location of continents and ocean has changed completely. Hundreds of millions of years ago, all the continents were joined together in one supercontinent called Pangea, by about 250 million years ago, Pangea split in two, with the southern supercontinent called Gondwana, starting to break up 150 million years ago. Around 80 million years ago the section of crust that was to become New Zealand separated from Gondwana. Auckland Grammar School Text Book PRESENT DAY These maps show how geologists believe the continents have moved over timeSee this link for an animation of the break-up of Gondwana: http://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/Contexts/Ferns/Sci-Media/Animations-and Interactives/Gondwana-animation Much of our small section of Pangea has spent most of the last 220 million years under water. The ancient supercontinent was worn down by wind, rain and rivers (eroded). The rivers carried the eroded material out to sea where it was deposited as sediments on our section of sea bed. As thick layers of sediment built up under the ocean it settled, compressed and cemented itself to form sedimentary rock Today, New Zealand lies on the boundary between two massive plates, the Indo- Australian and the Pacific. This plate boundary has created the deep ocean trenches and parallel chains of undersea volcanoes seen clearly on the map running north from East Cape and the Bay of Plenty. Some of this rock was later pressure-cooked by heat from molten rock and pressure from colliding plates deep underground to form schist and other metamorphic rocks during huge land upheavals as Gondwana broke up about 150 million years ago. These upheavals lifted much of our crust above sea level creating Zealandia, a land mass larger than New Zealand today. This map shows modern New Zealand in grey, together with our shallow seas in red and yellow. As the colours pass through green, blue and purple, the water gets much deeper. In the past much of the shallow seas were uncovered, creating a land mass we today call Zealandia Map By: Gordon DP, Beaumont J, MacDiarmid A, Robertson DA, Zealandia gradually sank under the ocean and more sedimentary rock was laid down, including the sandstones seen around Auckland’s coastline. Today, New Zealand lies on the boundary between two massive plates, the Indo-Australian and the Pacific. This plate boundary has created the deep ocean trenches and parallel chains of undersea volcanoes seen clearly on the map running North from East Cape and the Bay of Plenty. About 20 million years ago, another period of upheaval and mountain building began which continues today. New Zealand was lifted out of the ocean; Southland was shunted slowly along the Alpine Fault (which is the part of the plate boundary that runs down the Southern Alps) to its present position, 500 kilometres from where it started near Nelson. The Southern Alps and other mountain ranges in both islands have been gradually pushed up. It is estimated that Mt Cook has been pushed up 25km in the last two million years, however, it