Dunedin GNS scientist Dr Simon Cox was "absolutely gobsmacked" to win a New Zealand Hydrological Society prize for his research involving the Canterbury earthquake in September last year.
The prize, along with a $500 cheque, was given for the best paper presented at the society's recent 50th anniversary conference, in Wellington.
Dr Cox's paper focused on the effects on subsurface groundwater of the 7.1-magnitude Darfield earthquake, which hit at 4.35am on September 4 last year.
The paper was co-authored by Helen Rutter, of Christchurch, and researchers Martin Reyners, Donna Eberhart Phillips and Charles Williams, all of GNS Science, Avalon.
Dr Cox was part of an immediate response group of GNS scientists from Dunedin, who undertook research after the September quake, including flying by helicopter over the previously unknown Greendale Fault, west of Christchurch, and making a video recording of movement along the 30km-long fault.
This Canterbury earthquake, the first of a series of large quakes near or under Christchurch, resulted in some nearby liquefaction as well as groundwater changes throughout New Zealand, some as far afield as Northland.
Dr Cox was able to make use of regular and extensive groundwater readings taken in the Greendale area by Environment Canterbury, in order to routinely monitor the water resource.
These readings showed subsurface water levels had risen substantially, ranging from 5m to more than 45m.
"In terms of monitoring networks for groundwater, surveying and seismology, the recent Canterbury earthquakes were amongst the most densely instrumented on the planet," he said.
The observed effects would be of particular interest to overseas scientists striving to understand the "driving mechanisms" of fluid movement during earthquakes, and whether these involved changes in "dynamic stress" - a "seismic-pump"approach - or an alternative "broken-pipe" model of changes to water-bearing subsurface layers, he said.
Last year, Dr Cox won New Zealand's leading geoscience award, involving the McKay Hammer, for map-related research.
That award, by the Geological Society of New Zealand, marked the best contribution to geoscience by a New Zealand-based geologist, published over the previous three years.
