Ward Beach

On 11/4/2016, A 7.8 magnitude earthquake ripped across multiple fault lines on the South Island of NZ. This earthquake caused immense devastation and irreversibly changed the landscape in many areas.

One such area of dramatic landscape alteration was Ward Beach, roughly 135
km NE of the epicenter.

Here, the land rose by over 2 m. This caused the seafloor to uplift, exposing an otherworldly landscape. The area now exposed includes the Cretaceous-Palaeogene Boundary. The K-T Boundary represents the extinction event that ended the reign of dinosaurs and can be seen in the exposed rocks along the north end of the beach.