Summary: It is probably true that the Anglo-Maori Wars have received more attention from historians than any other single topic in New Zealand history. This is as it should be, because that event was a watershed - albeit an unhappy one - in the settlement in this country. I therefore make no apology for adding another piece of research which includes a consideration of events in 1859 and 1860. I first �discovered� C.W. Richmond when asked to present a tutorial on him whilst engaged in post-graduate studies at the University of Otago. Regular histories of the period of the Anglo-Maori Wars were consulted, but they dealt with Richmond only in passing. It was at this point that G.H. Scholefield�s two volume edition of the Richmond-Atkinson family papers came to my attention and I discovered in them a wealth of information hitherto unrevealed about the Minister for Native Affairs. Accordingly, I was attracted to a study of the man, and the present paper is the result. The wonder is that so little has been written on a man who played a key role (one could argue the key role) in the Waitara dispute which led the Anglo-Maori Wars. One thesis was written on him in 1948, and W.D. Stewart wrote a short book on him in 1947.

Many rural districts are facing economic decline because of a range of factors such as demographic change, changing socio-economic development patterns, farm amalgamations, the entry of large retail businesses, the so called ‘Big Box Retailing’ (BBRs), and a decline in rural infrastructure investment. These factors in turn affect the viability of many small-to-medium sized enterprises (SMEs), which are the primary employers and the engines for economic growth and employment in rural districts. The combined effect of these processes is that many rural districts struggle to keep young people, maintain economic and social diversity and attract new settlers and investment. This thesis seeks to answer the question as to how large scale retail businesses, rural farm amalgamations and declining rural populations impact on the viability of SME retail businesses in rural areas. In order to answer this question, this study identifies the key factors, which affect the future viability of small-to-medium sized retail businesses in sparsely populated rural districts using the South Taranaki District as a case study. The role of economic development agencies and district councils is also examined using case studies of small towns in rural districts of Australia and the United States of America (USA). This study found a number of factors affect the future viability of small-to-medium sized retail businesses in sparsely populated rural districts. For the South Taranaki district, these factors include the arrival of large-scale supermarkets, followed by large scale retail chains such as The Warehouse. These factors, combined with changing rural population structures and economic ‘spikes’ relating to sporadic energy development, have significant implications for the long term viability of many SMEs in the district. Case studies of similar rural districts in the USA and Australia provided examples of strategies that could be used to manage these impacts. This thesis recommends policies, initiatives and strategies that may be considered by territorial local authorities, regional councils and central governments to help address the economic development challenges facing rural districts.

Pollinering är avgörande för ett antal kommersiella grödor samt för olika växtarter i inhemsk vegetation. Honungsbi (Apis mellifera) är en av de viktigaste pollinerarna. I regionen Taranaki i Nya Zeeland finns två aspekter av kommersiell pollinering, dels betalar många biodlare för tillgång till manuka för de antibakteriella egenskaperna honungen får av den, dels betalar frukt- och grönsaksodlare för pollinering av sina grödor. Markägare kan ha ett intresse av att spara manuka på sina marker och få en utkomst från biodlarna genom att dessa betalar för åtkomsten. Studien syftar till att klarlägga de effekter som kommersiell pollinering har i Taranaki-regionen idag och för framtida användning och har utgått från intervjuer med biodlare, frukt- och grönsaksodlare och personer som representerar myndigheterna. Resultaten visar att de ekonomiska effekterna av kommersiell pollinering i dag i Taranaki-regionen är relativt små. Även den kommersiella pollineringens roll för skydd och förvaltning av inhemsk natur undersöks. Kommersiell pollinering kan vara en viktig del inom naturskydd men är samtidigt beroende på om interaktionen med andra bin kan vara skadlig. Pollineringstjänster kan utvecklas dels genom information till markägare och jordbrukare, dels genom marknadsföring från biodlare. / Pollination is crucial for a number of commercial crops as well as for native vegetation. The honey bee (Apis mellifera) is one of the most important pollinators. In the Taranaki region in New Zealand there are two aspects of commercial pollination; beekeepers pay for access to manuka due to the antibacterial quality it gives the honey and orchardists pay for pollination of their crops. Landowners could have an interest in managing the manuka and having beekeepers paying for the access. This study seeks to elucidate the effects that commercial pollination has in Taranaki region, today as well as for future use, through interviews with beekeepers, orchardists and authority personnel. The results show that the effects of commercial pollination in Taranaki are of minor extent. Also the role commercial pollination plays for environmental management is highlighted. Commercial pollination may be a part of nature protection and play a particular role in effort to increase biodiversity, but it is much depending on the interaction with native bees. Pollination services may be developed in different ways including informing landowners and farmers and marketing of beekeepers.

Summary: It is probably true that the Anglo-Maori Wars have received more attention from historians than any other single topic in New Zealand history. This is as it should be, because that event was a watershed - albeit an unhappy one - in the settlement in this country. I therefore make no apology for adding another piece of research which includes a consideration of events in 1859 and 1860. I first �discovered� C.W. Richmond when asked to present a tutorial on him whilst engaged in post-graduate studies at the University of Otago. Regular histories of the period of the Anglo-Maori Wars were consulted, but they dealt with Richmond only in passing. It was at this point that G.H. Scholefield�s two volume edition of the Richmond-Atkinson family papers came to my attention and I discovered in them a wealth of information hitherto unrevealed about the Minister for Native Affairs. Accordingly, I was attracted to a study of the man, and the present paper is the result. The wonder is that so little has been written on a man who played a key role (one could argue the key role) in the Waitara dispute which led the Anglo-Maori Wars. One thesis was written on him in 1948, and W.D. Stewart wrote a short book on him in 1947.

Many rural districts are facing economic decline because of a range of factors such as demographic change, changing socio-economic development patterns, farm amalgamations, the entry of large retail businesses, the so called ‘Big Box Retailing’ (BBRs), and a decline in rural infrastructure investment. These factors in turn affect the viability of many small-to-medium sized enterprises (SMEs), which are the primary employers and the engines for economic growth and employment in rural districts. The combined effect of these processes is that many rural districts struggle to keep young people, maintain economic and social diversity and attract new settlers and investment. This thesis seeks to answer the question as to how large scale retail businesses, rural farm amalgamations and declining rural populations impact on the viability of SME retail businesses in rural areas. In order to answer this question, this study identifies the key factors, which affect the future viability of small-to-medium sized retail businesses in sparsely populated rural districts using the South Taranaki District as a case study. The role of economic development agencies and district councils is also examined using case studies of small towns in rural districts of Australia and the United States of America (USA). This study found a number of factors affect the future viability of small-to-medium sized retail businesses in sparsely populated rural districts. For the South Taranaki district, these factors include the arrival of large-scale supermarkets, followed by large scale retail chains such as The Warehouse. These factors, combined with changing rural population structures and economic ‘spikes’ relating to sporadic energy development, have significant implications for the long term viability of many SMEs in the district. Case studies of similar rural districts in the USA and Australia provided examples of strategies that could be used to manage these impacts. This thesis recommends policies, initiatives and strategies that may be considered by territorial local authorities, regional councils and central governments to help address the economic development challenges facing rural districts.

>Magister Scientiae - MSc / The Taranaki Basin is a large (ca. 330,000 km²) sedimentary basin found along the west coast of the northern island of New Zealand. The basin lies partly onshore but mostly offshore below the broad continental shelf to the west of central North Island. The Taranaki Basin is the first sedimentary basin to be explored in New Zealand and is currently New Zealand’s only hydrocarbon producing basin, with approximately 418 million barrels (MMbbl) of oil and 6190 billion cubic feet (bcf) of gas produced by the end of 2011. Most of New Zealand’s known oil and gas accumulations are geochemically typed to coaly facies of Late Cretaceous and Paleogene ages. The main objective of this thesis is to characterize the source rock quality of the organic rich intervals of the Taranaki Basin, namely, the Wainui Member of the North Cape Formation and the Rakopi Formation. The Rakopi Formation comprises terrestrially deposited coal measures, while the North Cape Formation is generally composed of marine rocks. These Formations make up the Pakawau Group. The objective will be achieved using two key methods. Firstly, the derivation of TOC logs using Passey’s log overlay method (Passey et al., 1990) and secondly, the generation of source rock quality maps (i.e. source rock richness mapping and source potential index mapping). This will integrate concepts relating to petrophysical wireline logs, seismic interpretation, core log information, geochemical analysis, depth mapping and isopach mapping. The results obtained from this study confirms the petroleum potential of the organic rich intervals of the Taranaki Basin. Using Passey’s method it was shown that excellent average percent TOC values are encountered for both the Wainui Member of the North Cape Formation and the Rakopi Formation. From source potential index mapping, it can be concluded that the Rakopi formation has a high source potential index (>1000SPI) on the continental shelf, which indicates that it has excellent potential for petroleum generation. The Wainui Member however, shows less potential for petroleum generation on the shelf, this being attributed to generally low net thicknesses on the shelf.

Several off-shore volcano-plutonic complexes are imaged in detail in the Parihaka 3D seismic survey in the Taranaki Basin of New Zealand. Three intrusions were analyzed for this study. Part of the Mohakatino Volcanic Centre (15 to 1.6 Ma), these intrusions have steep sides, no resolvable base reflectors, no internal stratification or structure, and they exhibit doming and faulting in the sedimentary strata above the intrusions. Deformation along the sides is dominated by highly attenuated, dipping strata with dips of 45° or higher that decrease rapidly away from the intrusions. Doming extends several hundred meters from the margins and produced many high-angle normal faults and thinned strata. The intrusions lie near normal faults with the Northern Intrusion lying directly adjacent to a segment of the Parihaka Fault. The Central Intrusion has localized normal faults cutting a graben in the area directly above the intrusion and extending in a NE-SW direction away from it. The Western Intrusion is near the western edge of the Parihaka 3D dataset and is not situated directly adjacent to extensional faults.Two distinct zones of intrusion-related faults developed around both the Northern and Central Intrusions representing two different stress regimes present during emplacement, a local stress field created by the intrusions during emplacement and the regional stress field. The deeper zones contain short radial faults that extend away from the intrusion in all directions, representing a local stress field. The shallower faults have a radial pattern above the apex of each intrusion, but farther from it, they follow the regional stress field and trend NE. Using our techniques to interpret radial faulting above both intrusions and the principal of cross-cutting relations, timing of emplacement for these intrusions are 3.5 Ma for the Northern Intrusion and between 5 and 4 Ma for the Central and Western Intrusions.Observed space-making mechanisms for the Northern and Central Intrusions include doming (~16% and 11%, respectively), thinning and extension of roof strata (~4% for both), and extension within the basin itself (29% and 12%). Stoping and floor subsidence may have occurred, but are not visible in the seismic images. Magmatic extension may have played a significant role in emplacement.Several gas-rich zones are also imaged within the seismic data near the sea-floor. They appear as areas of acoustic impedance reversal compared to surrounding sedimentary strata and have a reversal of amplitude when compared to the sea floor. The gas in these zones is either biogenic or sourced from deeper reservoirs cut by normal faults.

Detailed 3D seismic images of a volcano-plutonic complex offshore northwestern New Zealand indicate the intrusive complex lies in a relay zone between NE-trending en echelon normal faults. A series of high angle normal faults fan out from the margin of the Southern Intrusive Complex and cut the folded strata along the margin. These faults terminate against the margins of the intrusion, extend as much as 1 pluton diameter away from the margin, and then merge with regional faults that are part of the Northern Taranaki Graben. Offset along these faults is on the order of 10s to over 100 meters. Strata on top of the complex are thinned and deformed into a faulted dome with an amplitude of about 0.7 km. Steep dip-slip faults form a semi-radial pattern in the roof rocks, but are strongly controlled by the regional stress field as many of the faults are sub-parallel to those that form the Northern Taranaki Graben. The longest roof faults are about the same length as the diameter of the pluton and cut through approximately 0.7 km of overlying strata. Fault offset gradually diminishes vertically away from the top of the intrusion. The Southern Intrusive Complex is a composite intrusion and formed from multiple steep-sided intrusions as evidenced by the complex margins and multiple apophyses. Small sills are apparent along the margins and near the roof of the Southern complex. Multiple episodes of deformation are also indicated by a series of unconformities in the sedimentary strata around the complex. Two large igneous bodies make up the composite intrusion as evidenced by the GeoAnomaly body detection tool. The Southern Intrusive Complex has a resolvable volume of 277 km3. Room for the complex was made by multiple space-making mechanisms. Roof uplift created ~3% of the space needed. Compaction/porosity loss is estimated to have contributed 20-40% of the space needed. Assimilation may have created ~0-30% space. Extension played a major role in creating the space needed and is estimated to have created a minimum of 33% of the space. Floor subsidence and stoping may have occurred, but are not resolvable in the seismic survey.

The long-term behaviour of andesitic stratovolcanoes is characterised by a repetition of edifice growth and collapse phases. This cyclic pattern may represent a natural frequency at varying timescales in the growth dynamics of stratovolcanoes, but is often difficult to identify because of long cycle-timescales, coupled with incomplete stratigraphic records. The volcaniclastic ring-plain succession surrounding the 2 518 m Mt. Taranaki, New Zealand, comprises a wide variety of distinctive volcanic mass-flow lithofacies with sedimentary and lithology characteristics that can be related to recurring volcanic cycles over >190 ka. Debrisflow and monolithologic hyperconcentrated-flow deposits record edifice growth phases while polylithologic debris-avalanche and associated cohesive debris-flow units were emplaced by collapse. Major edifice failures at Mt. Taranaki occurred on-average every 10 ka, with five events recognised over the last 30 ka, a time interval for which stratigraphic records are more complete. The unstable nature of Mt. Taranaki mainly results from its weak internal composite structure including abundant saturated pyroclastic deposits and breccia layers, along with its growth on a weakly indurated and tectonically fractured basement of Tertiary mudstones and sandstones. As the edifice repeatedly grew beyond a critical stable height or profile, large-scale collapses were triggered by intrusions preceding magmatic activity, major eruptions, or significant regional tectonic fault movements. Clasts within debris-avalanche deposits were used as a series of windows into the composition of previous successive proto-Mt Taranaki edifices in order to examine magmatic controls on their failure. The diversity of lithologies and their geochemical characteristics are similar throughout the history of the volcano, with the oldest sample suites displaying a slightly broader range of compositions including more primitive rock types. The evolution to a narrower range and higher-silica compositions was accompanied by an increase in K2O. This shows that later melts progressively interacted with underplated amphibolitic material at the base of the crust. These gradual changes imply a long-term stability of the magmatic system. The preservation of similar internal conditions during the volcano’s evolution, hence suggests that external processes were the main driving force behind its cyclic growth and collapse behaviour and resulting sedimentation pattern.

This research project on volcanic debris avalanches aims to provide a better understanding of the influence of the volume, fall height and topography on the deposit location and morphology. This will enable improvements in delineation of the areas at risk from volcanic debris avalanches, and improvements in management of a disaster should it occur. Undertaken to fulfil the requirements for a double degree (Geological Engineering and MSc in Hazard and Disaster Management) this work is the result of a collaboration between Polytechnic Institute LaSalle-Beauvais in France and the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. Following a brief introduction to the topic, statistical analyses of volcanic debris avalanche deposits are undertaken. Multiple variables analyses (Principal Components Analyses and Regressions) were carried out using a database of 298 volcanic debris avalanches derived from modification of Dufresne’s recent database. It was found that the volume has the main influence on the deposits rather than the fall height; the latter seems to have greater effect on avalanches of small volume. The topography into which the deposit is emplaced mainly determines its geometrical characteristics. These statistical results were compared with the results of laboratory-scale analogue modelling. A model similar to that used by Shea in 2005 provided data indicating similar trends of the influence of volume, fall height and topography on mass movement deposits at all scales. The final aspect of this project was a numerical simulation of a large debris avalanche from the north flank of the Taranaki volcano in the direction of the city of New Plymouth. The numerical code VolcFlow developed by Kelfoun in 2005 was used, after being tested against the laboratory experiments to verity its accuracy. The simulations showed that the Pouaki range protects the city of New Plymouth form major impacts from Taranaki collapses, but also indicated some potential problems with the hazard zoning and evacuation zones presently in place.