School of Environment
Dan Hikuroa
Job title: Part time School of Environment Lecturer/Jointly appointed with IESE
Phone: +64 9 373 7599 x 89026
Office: Room 301-262
Postal: School of Environment, The University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland
Email: d.hikuroa@auckland.ac.nz
TBA
Dan Hikuroa is investigating the paleoceanographic conditions that prevailed around New Zealand in the Cretaceous time period (145 - 65 million years ago). Sedimentary rocks that accumulated in the oceans record temperature, salinity, bioproductivity, chemistry, and provenance. From this information we can determine how oceanic-climatic conditions fluctuated - exerting primary control on content and distribution of sediments. In particular, the presence and concentration of organics in these sediments directly contributes to hydrocarbon sources, the basis of most of the world's energy reserves. The project focuses on some red, oxidised deep ocean sediments that were deposited offshore of New Zealand ~90 million years ago and now are found in the Raukumara Peninsula, East Cape. At that time global temperatures were 10 - 15° greater than today (greenhouse) and the oceans may have functioned in a very different way to modern (icehouse) oceans - by lacking the thermohaline circulation that is the mainstay of our current climate. With increased global warming we may be heading into another greenhouse period. By understanding how this ancient greenhouse ocean operated, we can better predict how the modern icehouse ocean might behave during a transition to another greenhouse.
