This zone lies between the violent pounding Tasman sea and towering Southern Alps. 

The Alps here are quickly rising as two of the planet's largest tectonic plates collide, tear and twist the landscape. The fault passes right through a town and a narrow, steep-sided glacier valleys.  

Glaciers 

Tectonics

Dinosaur Rainforests Forests

Wild Rivers

World's wettest weather

Information Centres

World's highest rain fall at 7m is delivered by the prevailing Roaring Forties trade winds.

Among the Southern Alps 70m of snow is deposited annually.  Billions of tonnes of this snow then slide from the mountain tops funneling steeply as gigantic glaciers that slice deep valleys into the uplifting mountains.

With the flows an immense quantity of debris is scoured from the mountains and left at the snout of each glacier. This it is then carried through the forests towards the ocean during the frequent flood events.

The exposed valley walls are beginning to beak with frost shatter, and the tearing due to tectonic ripping from the friction of the tearing intercontinental plate boundary.

These processes occur so quickly we can see them happening as we visit.