A spectacular voyage of discovery by waka has just taken place in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, merging modern and traditional technology, measuring emissions from far flung volcanoes.
The Vanuatu-Solomon Islands arc of volcanoes is a 15-hundred km long chain, part of the Ring of Fire. A third of the world's volcanic gases come from them.
Project leader Dr Ian Schipper's Marsden funded project is a unique science venture combining state of the art tools with a traditional double-hulled waka to reach these remote and under-studied active volcanoes.
Using underwater and airborne drones and home-made devices to capture gases, Senior Lecturer at Victoria University, Dr Ian Schipper worked with other NZ and international scientists and a crew of waka navigators and experts to measure emissions in the hope of understanding global volcanism and its atmospheric effects.
