Landslip Hill facts for kids
Landslip Hill is a special place in New Zealand, located where the Southland and Otago areas meet on the South Island. It's found between the towns of Tapanui and Pukerau. This hill is actually a large "debris flow," which means it was formed by a big movement of rock and soil. Geologists, who study rocks and the Earth, say it's made of sandy rocks called "quartz sandstones" from the Manuherikia Group. These rocks also contain fossils!
Ancient Plant Fossils
Landslip Hill is very famous among scientists who study plants because it has amazing plant fossils. These fossils are from a time long ago, between the Late Oligocene and Miocene periods.
The first collection of these fossils was made way back in 1862. This happened when Sir James Hector was in charge of the Geological Survey of Otago. Sir James Hector returned to Landslip Hill in 1869 to collect even more fossils. Later, in 1884, he suggested calling the sandy rocks there the 'Landslip Hill beds'.
These ancient plant remains include three-dimensional logs, stems, roots, and even different kinds of fruits. Some of these fossils look like plants that still grow in New Zealand today. Others are from plants that no longer live in the area. Recently, scientists have even found fossils of a plant genus called Casuarina at Landslip Hill.
Is it an Impact Crater?
For a while, some people thought that Landslip Hill might be an impact crater. An impact crater is a big hole made when a meteorite or comet crashes into the Earth. However, most reliable scientific sources say this is not true.
One scientist, Duncan Steel, from the Anglo-Australian Observatory and the University of Adelaide, suggested that Landslip Hill was formed by a large space rock hitting the Earth around 1200 CE. He supported his idea by pointing to an old Māori lament. He claimed this lament described huge fires from the sky, strong winds, and shaking ground. Others described the feature as being about 600 by 900 meters wide and 130 meters deep. They also mentioned a wide area of fallen trees around it, which they said were about 800 years old.
However, other experts like James Goff, Keri Hulme, and Bruce McFadgen have looked closely at these ideas. They found no evidence, either from Māori history or from geology, to support a meteor impact in New Zealand in the 15th century. They explain that using old legends or specific translations of Māori place-names to "fit" a known event needs to be done very carefully. They see this kind of thinking as trying to "creatively rewrite" New Zealand's past. They also looked at the Māori lament that Steel mentioned and disagreed with his translation and how he understood it.
