In brief: Sweeping the floor
When Tangaroa was called to survey the site of the undersea earthquake that rocked Marlborough and Wellington, it was busy fulfilling the Government's Ocean Survey 20/20 initiative.
Find out more about RV Tangaroa
The cross-agency initiative, coordinated by Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) promotes research in the New Zealand marine environment.
Land Information New Zealand website
Land Information Minister Maurice Williamson had announced a few weeks earlier that LINZ would contribute $2.1 million this year to the Ocean Survey 20/20 initiative. That will pay for 40 sailing days of Tangaroa.
"Two voyages will undertake seafloor mapping of the southern Colville Ridge off the coast of Auckland, geological and biological sampling, and mapping the seafloor in the Aotea and Reinga basins off the North Island's west coast," the Minister said.
Another voyage will deploy ocean bottom seismometers and pressure recorders offshore from Gisborne to monitor earthquake tremor activity over a two-year period.
The data being collected by NIWA is available on the OS 20/20 website.