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Wednesday, August 5, 2009

The Interview

This morning, we had a video conference with one of New Zealand's geologists.  Well actually, a world famous geologist!  His name is Hamish Campbell.  He has a gift of explaining words that kids my age don't understand. 

While preparing for this event, we made seismometers.  In my group was Seini-Mino and Mubasshira.  A seismometer is a machine that records how big the energy was that was sent from the epicenter.

The last time we had an interview with him, we were talking about dinosaurs. Hamish told us that Joan Wiffen, the famous paleontologist had passed away.  She was truly an inspiration.  He even got to go to her funeral to represent Te-Papa. How cool!

 Back to our discussions about the earthquake.  He told us that it was amazing because the Australian plate went underneath the Pacific plate.  When he showed us with his own hands it looked as if the plate had dived!  

He told us all about an earthquake in 1976 which happened to be in Tangshan China.  He explained to us that earthquakes are so quick that 242, 000 people died when the earthquake was only 15 seconds! I was amazed because, in Fiordland the earthquake lasted 30 seconds and no one died!
 
Thank you Diana-Grace and Hamish Campbell for the interview!  We really enjoyed it.

3 comments:

  1. Hi Toreka, I really enjoyed reading your post - very informative. It makes me want me to learn more about earthquakes and palaeontology! Great work with the seismometer as well - was it hard to make? Looking forward to your next post.
    Dad

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  2. Hi Toreka,

    I really liked what you have been written on your blog, it just amazed me from all the wonderful writing you have been doing! Tino pai.

    My favourite bit was when you had written,"He has a gift of explaining that kids my age don't understand" I think that stands out a lot!!!

    It's also really sad that Joan Wiffen has died. That was really thankful for saying word's that i have just read,I also think that Joan Wiffen is looking down on us reading the bit of there self in these stories.

    Bye!!!!
    Ala Toetuu

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  3. Hello Toreka. What a good post! I think your writing flows well from paragraph to paragraph. Your recount of the facts that were shared and learnt are accurate. Your group - in the class prior to the video conference had a lot of fun making your seismometer! Keep up the good writing Toreka.
    Mrs Tele'a

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