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Story: Geomorphology – a history

Mountains near Fox River, south Westland

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Mountains near Fox River, south Westland

In 1941, geologists Harold Wellman and Dick Willett travelled down the West Coast between Hokitika and Lake McKerrow in search of minerals. They noticed that there was an abrupt western boundary to the Southern Alps. This sketch from Willett’s notebook shows a notch (far left) where the Alpine Fault crosses a saddle and the steep mountain front.

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Reference: R. W. Willett, field notebook, 1941.

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How to cite this page

Rebecca Priestley, Geomorphology – a history – Key theories: 1880s–1940s, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/diagram/13116/mountains-near-fox-river-south-westland (accessed 4 June 2026).

Story by Rebecca Priestley, published 1 March 2009.