Auckland
The Auckland Branch has had a steady start to 2024, with several evening events and planning for future offerings to the membership.
In late January, the Branch kicked things off with a webinar from Dr Thejesh Kumar Garala, a Geotechncial Consultant at Fugro in the UK. Dr Garala presented on “Seismic Soil-Pile-Structure Interaction in Soft Clays and Layered Soils” – an interesting topic that attracted a solid online attendance, being well-received by those who joined the webinar.
After a few years of absence, the Rankine Lecture returned to New Zealand, with Dr Stephan Jefferis presenting the 60th Rankine Lecture “The Unusual and the Unexpected in Geotechncial Engineering: Observation – Analogy – Experiment”. This was a very well attended event at the University of Auckland, with what is likely to have been our best attendance in recent years. The talk was reasonably specific but incorporated thought-provoking themes, challenging the audience to step outside of the day-to-day and think about aspects of the underground world that are not always considered, for example the role of biological processes in the performance of structures in natural soils.
We then hosted Dr Masaho Yoshida from the National Institute of Technology, Fakui College, alongside three accompanying professors from Japan, who spoke about the Noto Peninsula Earthquake. Dr Yoshida provided the audience with reflections from on the ground reconnaissance and observations, as well as sharing learning and connections with past earthquakes. Having such speakers in New Zealand who are willing to share their experience with our Society is a real opportunity to expand our thinking and approach to earthquake engineering, the social impacts thereof, and how we as engineers can aim to mitigate the effects of future earthquakes.
Looking ahead, the Auckland Branch will be hosting the NZGS Geo-education roadshow in July, which will have already taken place across several of our other branches. Further out, we have multiple evening events planned, including a series of talks sharing some interesting stories and lessons from large infrastructure projects across the Auckland region. If you have anything you want to present or would like to see, reach out to your coordinators for a chat.
The big news for the Auckland Branch was the departure of Jay Doddaballapur to Boston, US where he has taken up a new opportunity. With this came Jay’s resignation from his role with the NZGS, which is a big loss for the Society with his enthusiasm and connections driving several years of great speakers and events. We extend a huge thank you to Jay and wish him all the best for his time in the US.
Ben Francis
Waikato
The Waikato branch have held some informative technical presentations over the last 6 months with a great turn out for each of them. In December 2023, CMW Geosciences hosted an evening of technical presentations presented by Kori Lentfer (CMW Geosciences), Natasha Jokhan (Brian Perry Civil), Ken Read (Beca), David MacPherson (CMW Geosciences) and Kostas Lontzetidis (CMW Geosciences). During this event, Brian Perry Civil were kind enough to sponsor pizzas and drinks so this was a night filled with lots of food and great presentations.
In April 2024, we had the pleasure of Nico Brusa visit from Italy representing Tailor Engineering who kindly offered to share a presentation hosed in BCD’s Hamilton office on Embankment over soft soils, voids and piles and presented some great design and project examples along the way. Once again, pizzas and beers were provided and this combined with Nicos presentation was definitely a hit!
As we come to the end of a busy earthworks period in the Geotechnical industry across the Waikato, we now look ahead for our next few events for the winter period. We have ideas of a social event to kick things off followed by more technical presentations that will provide us all with further knowledge across a range of topics.
Jessel Ladwa
Bay of Plenty
In the past 6 months we have had a couple of excellent presentations; in October we had some short presentations from our Bay of Plenty attendees to the ANZ Geomechanics 2023 Conference including Kim de Graaf, Harry Wahab, James Griffiths, Natasha Jokhan, and Raathiv Shanmuganathan (Figure 1).
Figure 1. October NZGS BOP Branch Presentation.
We also had a Bay of Plenty Christmas Networking Event in December, where the drinks and nibbles were devoured with glee while we caught up with our local geotechnical peers to close out the year (Figure 2).
Figure 2. December NZGS BOP Branch Event.
Our proposed presentation schedule for 2024 is provided in Table 1, a big thank you to those who have offered to present this year and contribute to our local branch. Be sure to add the dates to your calendars now so you don’t miss out!
We always welcome additional ideas from our members for presentations or site visits so do get in touch with any of your ideas!
Rhiannon Robinson
Gisborne
Tūranganui-a-Kiwa Gisborne is welcoming the hive of activity which the Transport Rebuild East Coast (TREC) team and other cyclone recovery projects are bringing to the region. TREC is bringing together a lot of geo-professionals from various home organisations within the region (as well as across the other TREC hubs), and we hope to leverage this platform to increase the branch’s activities. Being in a remote part of Aotearoa we want to thank all the other branches that share their presentations online and who give us an opportunity to attend virtually. To any geo-professionals visiting the region, please feel free to get in touch if you would like to share your knowledge, have an interesting topic or project you could share with our local branch, or would just like to meet our friendly local crew (perhaps over a Gizzy Gold!)
Taranaki
ABOVE The March event for trhe Taranaki Branch
The Taranaki Branch continues to grow and develop. Our membership, albeit a small cohort has almost doubled over the past year, with most local professionals now being a part of the branch.
The NZGS hosted an exciting online lecture, presented by Professor George Gazetas in November 2023. The Taranaki Branch got together at the BTW Company offices, to share some food and drink whilst learning about the February 2023 Earthquake in Turkey. It was fascinating to see the amount of data collected during this seismic event and how this data correlated with the observed damage to the surrounding region.
In March 2024, The Taranaki Branch hosted the first group learning presentation for the year. This event was led by James Stringer at HD Geo, showcasing some great examples of how GIS and LiDAR can and should be utilised by geotechnical professionals in our daily work. The Taranaki Branch members also shared discussions, recent experiences and industry challenges we face in Taranaki and how we can continue to improve and assist each other. Overall, we had a great turnout and engagement at this event, with attendees from most of local engineering firms. No doubt helped by the allure of beers and pizza.
We continue to look forward to future Taranaki branch events. We are slowly populating a list of ideas and presentations that would benefit us locally, whilst keeping an eye out for lectures and learnings from further afield.
Matthew Sullivan-Brown
Wellington
ABOVE Wellington branch activities.
On the evening of 26th March, the Wellington branch hosted a joint harbour cruise with the New Zealand Coastal Society (NZCS). While the charter boat, Sweet Georgia, cruised along the Wellington Harbour, a series of talks took place on “Te Ara Tupua’s Ngā Ūranga ki Poti-One project” and “Seaview Wharf upgrade”. This event was an opportunity for attending members to get a close look at work that’s going on and pose questions on the projects.
The Ngā Ūranga ki Poti-One project’s cultural and ecological significance, close proximity to live rail lines, the Wellington fault line and challenging coastal environment, presented great design and construction challenges. The Te Ara Tupua’s project team from Tonkin & Taylor Ltd, including Michael Paine (Senior Coastal Engineer), Mikias Yohannes (Senior Geotechnical Engineer), and Marcus Cameron (Senior Aquatic Scientist), provided insightful presentations on the project’s coastal, geotechnical, and ecological design elements and the innovative approaches used to meet various challenges. The discussions highlighted the importance of collaboration, innovation, and adoption of new technology in resolving complex engineering issues.
The Seaview Wharf upgrade, a part of the Seaview Energy Resilience Project, aims to strengthen the 50-year-old wharf and pipeline, making it more resilient to earthquakes and severe weather. The Kaikōura Earthquake in 2016 caused significant damage to the wharf, prompting an urgent repair and upgrade to meet international standards for ship berthing and bulk fuel discharge. Liam Hall (Senior Structural Engineer from Holmes Consulting Ltd) and Matthew McKee (from CentrePort Ltd) presented details about the upgrade, with Sweet Georgia anchored in front of the enormous barge platform adjacent to the Seaview Wharf.
The event saw great participation with over 40 attendees, including representatives from NZGS Wellington Branch (Shirley Wang, Senior Geotechnical Engineer from Tonkin & Taylor Ltd) and NZCS Wellington Branch (Ryan Abrey, Principal Civil & Coastal Engineer from Stantec). Special thanks go to Holly Blakely (Coastal Engineer from Tonkin & Taylor) for her commendable organization of the event, and to Engineering New Zealand for their invaluable support. The event was kindly sponsored and hosted by NZCS and NZGS.
On 1st May, we held a panel discussion on the education of geo-professionals in New Zealand. The panel included Liam Wotherspoon (Professor, Auckland University), Martin Brook (Associated Professor, Auckland University), Christoph Kraus (Senior Engineering Geologist, Beca), Eleni Gkeli (Technical Director for Engineering Geology, Stantec) and Brett Williams (General Manager – Global, Engineering New Zealand). The aim of the panel discussion was to present various perspectives about geo-education in New Zealand, and to engage with members and stakeholders to hear their thoughts, concerns, ideas, and recommendations. The event was kindly sponsored and hosted by Stantec.
We continually seek interesting presentations or workshops for our members. If you have any ideas or suggestions, please feel free to contact the local branch committee.
Shirley Wang & Christoph Kraus
Christchurch
The Christchurch branch was pleased to host a member event in April this year. In collaboration with the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) Australasia, we hosted Nicola (Nico) Brusa of Tailor Engineering who presented a talk on construction of embankments over soft soils, voids and piles using geosynthetics. The case studies included major European infrastructure projects where the benefits of geosynthetics were discussed. The event attracted approximately 25 attendees. Thank you to Tailor Engineering who sponsored the refreshments for this engaging talk.
Tim Farrant and Rori Green
Dunedin
The Otago Branch was lucky to have Professor Jon Stewart of UCLA come and give a presentation in March. The presentation was quite last minute but NZGS was able to support it and the Otago University was able to provide a venue on short notice. Regardless of the above we had quite a high turnout in numbers in person and online for the Dunedin branch. In addition to this, our branch members have been making the most of local talks/events organised by GSNZ, Otago University, AusIMM and EngNZ
The other new change is that Brian Adams also has taken over the co-branch coordinator role in the area. NZGS is lucky to have someone of his experience and connections.
Tim Plunket and Brian Adams
