‘She’s a fancy bit of kit,’ says f inder
An expensive piece of scientific equipment belonging to GNS Science has been saved from being turned into a fancy feature at a family batch.
Darrin Spillane found the mystery object – the size of a beach ball and bright yellow, covered in crabs, seaweed and barnacles – bobbing in the water off the coast of Waihau Bay near Gisborne while on a game-fishing trip with his family in January.
Having taken the object back home to Taumarunui, calls to GNS, GeoNet and the Japanese phone number printed on it failed to shed any light on what it was or who it belonged to.
His sons were getting ready to turn it into a piece of home decor when Spillane’s mate heard on the radio that GNS was on the hunt for scientific equipment lost off the Gisborne coast.
‘‘She’s a pretty fancy bit of kit. The boys had their tools out and were ready to pull it apart, so it’s bloody lucky,’’ Spillane said.
‘‘There’s a big glass sphere inside, so we were going to empty it out and turn it into a feature light out at [our bach].’’
After some research on the internet Spillane found his catch of the day was an ocean bottom seismometer (OBS) – used for recording seismic activity and creating 3-D images of the sea floor.
He contacted GNS on May 28 with the good news. The return of the OBS was still being organised.
The OBS was one of 100 placed on the sea floor off the east coast of the North Island by GNS near the Hikurangi subduction boundary – where the Pacific tectonic plate dives below the Australian plate, just before Christmas last year.
The OBS found by Spillane was one of three that were lost when GNS went to retrieve them in early April.
GNS principal scientist Dr Stuart Henrys said the find had raised GNS’s hopes of recovering the other seismometers, worth about $40,000 each. They belong to the Japan Agency for MarineEarth Science and Technology.