Story: Geology – overview

This view from the sea of the highest part of the Southern Alps, including Mt Cook and Mt Tasman, was painted by John Gully.

Of this painting, geologist Julius Haast wrote in New Zealand scenery (1887): ‘The high peaks of the Southern Alps, as seen from the sea, form one of the sublimest views in New Zealand … It is to be observed that the low wooded hills in the foreground consist entirely of morainic accumulations, formed during the great glacier age of New Zealand, when gigantic ice streams extended some miles into the sea.’