Proposed Coal Prospecting Beneath the Waimea Plains

The authors of the Dun Mountain bulletin attributed the disturbed and very steep dip of the seams near Nelson as due to a major fault, named earlier by McKay as the Waimea Fault, on the east side of the coal measures. Bell et al. thought that away from the fault, below the alluviam of the Waimea Plains, the coal seams, if not already removed by erosion, would be gentler and recommended exploratory drilling. However Worley, like McKay earlier, appeciated that as the coal measures in the Brook Valley were wedged between considerably older, non coal bearing rocks to the east and west then, he correctly reasoned, this would be the case further south and that the older rocks would also underlie the Waimea Plains. Having expressed this view to Bell at the time field work for the Dun Mountain survey was in progress, Worley must have been annoyed to see what finally appeared in the bulletin. He was to write to Bell at some length on this and other failings in the bulletin. The existence of coal in the Waimeas was something taken up by Thomas Cawthron for his biographer David Miller lists among the projects being considered in 1913 was prospecting of the Waimea Basin measures. This, fortunately, was shelved on Cawthron's death in 1915. Worley had however considerable faith in the mineral resources of Nelson for he later wrote that whilst the main work of the Cawthron Institute (established in 1919) would be in the horticultural field, the mineral resources of Nelson should also be assessed. He went on to argue that although "it would not be absolutely necessary to have a separate professor of geology (as) one of the other professors, the biologist for example, would serve for both positions, especially if a second Charles Darwin could be found". Like a coal mining industry this was not to eventuate.