!!! Mail from Tony July 2, 2012

Just an update on the Ngauruhoe situation. I talked to the liaison scientist at the Department of Conservation (DoC), he said he thinks that there should be no trouble with an installation on Pukekaikiore or the ridge SW of Ngauruhoe. He did say the equipment should be in dark colours so I got someone to photoshop your picture to make the detector look less conspicuous, and I'd prefer to use this version when I do an application.

If Pukekaikiore or a similar site looks usable, then I can put in an application for a site there, on the other hand if that is not suitable we could still consider a site high up on the south side of Ngauruhoe, but that would be a harder area to work in because of the steep slope. The application will probably take several months to process, so I should put it in by August if there is to be any prospect of operating this coming Summer. The other question is finance,
I'm expecting to pay the NZ support costs including helicopters, but what else is likely to be involved?

!!! Mail from Tony June 22, 2012

Thanks for your e-mail, you've been very busy since April. I had been distracted by other tasks but in fact yesterday I had just obtained a DTM with 10 m contours of Ngauruhoe and its surroundings, which I have attached. I believe that it was derived from the 20 m mapping, but it is likely that we will produce a better DTM quite soon, so if any experiment went ahead, it would have access to a good topography model. The DTM is a zip file of ArcMap files, which I think is a fairly common format. If you can't read these, I can produce an ASCII file of elevations, but it will be somewhat larger.

Also attached are a .bmp and a .pdf of Ngauruhoe with 20 m contours.

In regard to possible sites, the very popular Tongariro Crossing route runs across the top of the map with 20 m contours, from Mangatepopo Hut via Soda Springs to South Crater before turning north to cross Tongariro. Many people climb Ngauruhoe from South Crater, so no installation would be allowed on the north side of Ngauruhoe. On Pukekaikiore, the area that would most likely be permitted is to the south of the main summit and ridge, so as not to be visible from the north. This site would also have the advantage of an easy radio link to our Observatory at Whakapapa village, which is 8 km SW of Pukekaikiore, and in view from its southern side. There is also another ridge SW of Ngauruhoe (East of seismic station NGZ) which might be a possibility, and is further from where most visitors go. Both of these sites are much flatter than the sites I was originally thinking of on the south flanks of Ngauruhoe itself, at about 1900 m elevation. How much does being a km or two away from the mountain make a difference in the length of time required to get adequate data?

Regarding a possible schedule, the snow-free period is about December to May, so there would be a possibility of early next year if the simulations indicate that 4 months or so is an adequate recording time. Even for a temporary installation, the process of getting permission can take a while, so it may be that we can not do anything until the following summer. I will talk to our contact person at the Department of Conservation about Pukekaikiore, to get an idea how sensitive a location it is.

Regarding power supplies, we have a reasonable number of solar cells, so I think we could plan to provide 30 Watts, but this area can have long periods of cloud. What happens if the power goes off for a while, can the system recover when it returns?
 
Any of these sites would require helicopter access. This is comparatively easy/cheap in New Zealand and the installation/removal can probably be combined with other projects using helicopters.