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Third Annual Project Meeting
In late January 2023 the “Year 3” meeting of the Solar Tsunamis research programme was held in Wellington, hosted by our colleagues from GNS Science Te Pū Ao. The meeting was held in the conference facilities in Te Papa, and included visits to GNS (including the National Geohazards Monitoring Centre for New Zealand), and Transpower
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First Injection Campaign
It can be challenging to measure the real world effects of Geomagnetically Induced Currents (GICs) on the electrical grid, because researchers and engineers have to wait until solar activity causes a significant geomagnetic disturbance in the Earth’s magnetic field. Having no control over when these events might happen or how extreme they can be places
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Daniel Mac Manus hands in PhD thesis
Today (4th Jan) Daniel Mac Manus submitted his PhD thesis – a great way to start 2023! Daniel has been working on his thesis research for a little under 4 years, which has involved some strong collaboration with our industry partners from Transpower New Zealand. The upshot of that was a recent paper in AGU’s Space Weather journal, looking
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GNS Installs Northlands First 8 LEMI Instruments
In October 2022, Kristin Pratscher, Wiebke Heise and Malcolm Ingham installed the first 8 LEMI instruments in Northland and the remote reference site in the Kaingaroa forest. They also scouted some sites for the next fieldtrip scheduled in mid-November 2022 and found a place to store some equipment in Auckland (a friend of Malcolm Ingham).
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Chatham Islands Festival of Science
The Chatham Islands Festival of Science brought project members from Dunedin, along with scientists from around New Zealand to the islands in mid August. The outreach team from Tūhura Otago Museum visited schools with help from the scientists as part of a jam-packed week’s worth of science focused activites. The Solar Tsunamis team were busy
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Visit to Firstgas
Project members from around New Zealand travelled to New Plymouth recently to meet with Firstgas. As part of the Solar Tsunami Endeavour Fund, research is being undertaken to help Firstgas understand what risks are posed to gas pipelines by GIC. Unlike power transmission lines, gas pipelines are not at risk of sudden catastrophic damage due
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GNS Southland LEMI Deployment
At the end of September 2021 Ted Bertrand and Wiebke Heise installed the first 8 LEMI instruments for this season in the Queenstown area. In November that year Malcolm Ingham and Wiebke Heise picked up the 8 instruments and installed them at 8 new locations in Otago, Southland and Fiordland. One site that was picked
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Second annual project meeting
The second annual Solar Tsunamis project meeting took place in Dunedin and online this year. 40 project members attended over 3 days to discuss the work completed over the last year, and ideas for future work. 15 people have joined the project since our inaugural meeting in February 2021, though sadly many New Zealand project
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Summer fieldwork season begins
The Solar Tsunamis 2021/2022 summer fieldwork season has begun, with Wiebke Heise, Ted Bertrand and Malcolm Ingham from VUW and GNS undertaking magnetotelluric testing in Fiordland and the Southern Lakes via helicopter in November and December. 40 of the testing sites have been completed, with the current 8 to be removed in early 2022. The
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Fiery experiments demostrate solar tsunamis
Toni Hoeta and Jessa Barder of Tūhura Otago Museum visited Te Wharekura O Arowhenua pupils in Invercargill in mid-November to debut demonstrations to explain the science of solar tsunamis and how solar storms could affect Earth and the electricity grid. Kyra Batchelor-Tata, pictured above, assisted Toni in simulating hydrogen fusion generates energy in a star.
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Magnetometer deployed at Awarua Satellite Ground Station
The first of a series of magnetometer deloyments took place at Awarua Satellite Ground Station in October. The satellite ground station is owned and operated by Space Operations NZ, who are hosting the Solar Tsunamis magnetometer for the length of the project. Dr Aaron Hendry, from the Otago space physics group, lead the fieldtrip to
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Logo design competition winner
Māikel Terekia is the winner of the logo design competition run by Tūhura Otago Museum with kura kaupapa and wharekura around Aotearoa earlier this year. 13 year old Māikel, a student from Te Kura Kaupapa Māori o Horouta Wānanga in Gisbourne submitting his winning design. As part of his design being chosen, he was flown
