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.
