Middle Waipara River
Saturday 20 January 2024
The promise of a water trip on this hot day, and interesting geological features lured sixteen keen trampers to the Waipara River inland from Amberley. After placing a car at Boby Stream on Ram Paddock Road we walked upstream from Laidmore Road. Soon we were at strata thought to be laid down 66 million years ago when a cataclysm deposited a thin layer of iridium-rich fallout world-wide. The deposit wasn’t obvious to us. Deposits 10 million years later were visible, corresponding to a time when CO2 and global temperatures went skyward. The period is known as the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM).