FOULDEN MAAR

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Foulden Maar: Dunedin City Council saves fossil site from mining by buying land

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In New Zealand, Locals Rally to Save Fossils from Destruction

A good summary of what has been happening with Foulden Maar over the last few years and an update.

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Lake

Dunedin City Council poised to buy Foulden Maar

A property valuation for the Foulden Maar site is expected ‘‘shortly’’, Dunedin City Council chief executive Sue Bidrose says. Negotiations to acquire the land formed by the 23million-year-old volcanic crater lake near Middlemarch would begin once the council received the valuation, Dr Bidrose said. However, when asked yesterday whether the council could be more specific — whether ‘‘shortly’’ referred to days or weeks — she said it could not.

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Foulden Maar for public good, not pig food

A nervous wait for scientists worried about the fate of Foulden Maar's fossils could be over A site described as Dunedin’s Pompeii appears to be safe from the risk of mining after the Dunedin City Council announces its desire to buy it.

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The giant parrot proves we have to save Foulden Maar

The recent discovery of a fossil parrot the size of a human toddler is even more reason for Foulden Maar to be protected, writes the chairperson of Save Foulden Maar, Kimberley Collins. Last week, scientists discovered a new species of extinct parrot in the St Bathans Fauna. Weighing in at seven kilograms and standing just under a metre tall, it was around three times the size of a kākāpō, the world’s heaviest living parrot.

Foulden Maar fight rumbles on

A petition is adding to the growing weight of opposition to a proposal to mine fossils for pig food. Will stopping the land sale be enough? A 10,000-signature petition will be submitted to the Overseas Investment Office opposing the purchase of land which could make a fossil-mining operation viable. Just over a month ago few people knew what a maar was or that New Zealand was home to one of the most unique maars in the Southern Hemisphere.

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Buried treasure

For palaeontologists, the dark diatomite layers of Foulden Maar are like the shelves of a great library. Outside that library, bulldozers wait.

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Foulden Maar is featured from 28 minutes in Ep 2. New Zealand owes its existence to a fiery past. Volcanoes lifted islands out of the sea and generated rivers from their slopes. But the past isn’t dead. From a lava tube hidden under suburban sprawl to lost wonders of the world, alien lifeforms, and a city built above a ticking time bomb, it’s presenting a dire warning that history may soon be repeating itself.

by Nic Rawlence, lecturer in Ancient DNA, University of Otago An Australian company’s application to mine a fossil-rich site in the south of New Zealand has been met with fierce criticism and a campaign to protect it in perpetuity. Foulden Maar, near Dunedin, is arguably the most important terrestrial fossil site in NZ. It comprises a complete ecosystem. This makes it one of the most important sites from the Miocene in the southern hemisphere and comparable to the famous, UNESCO-protected ... Goldman Sachs, 25 May, Mining Company, Country Roads, How To Plan

by Nic Rawlence, lecturer in Ancient DNA, University of Otago An Australian company’s application to mine a fossil-rich site in the south of New Zealand has been met with fierce criticism and a campaign to protect it in perpetuity. Foulden Maar, near Dunedin, is arguably the most important terrestrial fossil site in NZ. It comprises a complete ecosystem. This makes it one of the most important sites from the Miocene in the southern hemisphere and comparable to the famous, UNESCO-protected ...

Landscape Features

Pet Food

Unesco World Heritage Site

Unesco World Heritage

Concerns about protecting ancient fossils at Foulden Maar are also highlighting the need to protect other outstanding Otago landscape features, a Dunedin paleontologist says. "We need as a community to look at this again and start appreciating these outstanding natural features and promoting public understanding of them, with community discussion.

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Extinct birds

University of adelaide

It is inevitable thousands of new species of fossil will be lost forever if a controversial mining plan near Middlemarch goes ahead at the scale proposed, a group representing geosciences in New Zealand says. The Geoscience Society of New Zealand has revised its submission to the Overseas Investment Office on Plaman Resources' application to buy a 432ha farm surrounding its Foulden Maar diatomite mine.

Future People

Cattle Feed

Open Pit

Environmental Scientist

Animal Food

In The News

Could new legislation save Foulden Maar? — RNZ PODCAST 12 June 2019

Dunedin's Mayor Dave Cull is calling for the government to consider using legislation to protect the "globally significant" Foulden Maar. Also joining Kathryn is Dr Jennifer Eccles, president of Geoscience Society of New Zealand, with her reaction to Dunedin City Council's move.

Financial offer dangled for fossil mine support

In a bid to get scientists to give a fossil-mining-for-pig-food venture their blessing, the mining company made a number of offers - including funding staff - to help get its project over the line. Funding was on the table for the University of Otago if it abandoned its opposition to open-pit mining plans at a fossil-filled site.

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Paleontologist breaks silence: 'horrified' over Foulden Maar

A University of Otago paleontologist has broken her silence on a controversial mining proposal, saying she was "more than horrified'' to learn the full extent of plans for Foulden Maar, near Middlemarch. Associate Prof Daphne Lee spoke to Dunedin City councillors at a public forum yesterday afternoon, criticising the proposal to mine hundreds of thousands of tonnes of fossil-rich diatomite at the 23-million-year-old site to add to animal feed. Her understanding from reading research papers...