Brook Tozer is returning to New Zealand to continue his research around earthquakes due to receiving a postdoctoral fellowship. Photo / Supplied
Brook Tozer is returning to New Zealand to continue his research around earthquakes due to receiving a postdoctoral fellowship. Photo / Supplied
A Whanganui-born earthquake scientist is returning home after years abroad following a Rutherford Foundation postdoctoral fellowship.
Brook Tozer has received funding for two years to join a new project at GNS Science in Lower Hutt to research at the similarities between subduction zones in Japan and New Zealand.
The projectaims to improve the understanding of the Hikurangi subduction zone along the East Coast of the North Island and the Cook Strait.
The ex-Cullinane College student began his studies at Victoria University completing an undergraduate degree and then went on to study his masters.
"That's when I really realised there's a lot more we have to learn about how the Earth works and specifically how these really large earthquakes occur," he said.
Tozer's masters thesis research was about the imaging of the Hikurangi subduction zone in two dimensions and also the Whanganui Basin which is an area in the western part of the North Island.
"The work is really a continuation of that but moving into three-dimension so 3D imaging and actually moving the focus to the Cook Strait region because that's the area that we identified to be similar to the northeast of Japan in the Tohoku magnitude nine earthquake that hit in 2011."
Tozer then went to Oxford to complete a PhD and is now based at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, one of the world's oldest and largest centres for ocean and Earth science research.
He will move back to New Zealand in the early new year to work with a team at GNS scientists who have been carrying out this research for some time.
It involves analysing seismic waves that have travelled through the Earth's crust and then producing 3D models of the southern portion of the Hikurangi margin that is similar to a medical CAT scan.
Unlike last year's Kaikoura earthquake, movement of the Hikurangi Subduction Zone could trigger a significant tsunami.
He said understanding the potential magnitude of earthquakes that can occur along the Hikurangi margin is still poorly understood as we have not had many earthquakes occur in historical times.
Tozer said through this research we can learn about the kinds of earthquakes we could expect in the southern Hikurangi Margin.
"Megathrust faults produce the largest earthquakes on Earth. Seafloor movement associated with these events can also produce tsunamis, making them one of the most devastating of natural hazards,"
Tozer said he is looking forward to coming home and working with a team of scientists who are at the cutting edge of this research.
One of whom is Dan Bassett, who will be Tozer's supervisor and he has known him for many years. The fellowship Tozer has been awarded is administered by the Royal Society and enables recipients to undertake full-time research for two years within New Zealand.
