John Hardcastle (21 January 1847 – 12 June 1927) was a New Zealand amateur scientist, and pioneer in the study of

paleoclimatology Paleoclimatology (American and British English spelling differences, British spelling, palaeoclimatology) is the study of climates for which direct measurements were not taken. As instrumental records only span a tiny part of Earth's history, the ...

. Hardcastle was born in

Wakefield Wakefield is a cathedral city in West Yorkshire, England located on the River Calder. The city had a population of 99,251 in the 2011 census.https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/census/2011/ks101ew Census 2011 table KS101EW Usual resident population, ...

, Yorkshire, England in 1847. He moved with his family to New Zealand in 1858. He spent most of his life in the South Island, largely at

Timaru Timaru (; mi, Te Tihi-o-Maru) is a port city in the southern Canterbury Region of New Zealand, located southwest of Christchurch and about northeast of Dunedin on the eastern Pacific coast of the South Island. The Timaru urban area is home to ...

where he eventually became the editor of ''

The Timaru Herald ''The Timaru Herald'' is a daily provincial newspaper serving the Timaru, South Canterbury and North Otago districts of New Zealand. The current audited daily circulation is about 14,500 copies, with a readership of about 31,000 people. The pap ...

'' newspaper. He was a committed and talented amateur scientist who published several papers, most significantly in the publications of the New Zealand Institute (the forerunner of the

Royal Society of New Zealand Royal may refer to: People * Royal (name), a list of people with either the surname or given name * A member of a royal family Places United States * Royal, Arkansas, an unincorporated community * Royal, Illinois, a village * Royal, Iowa, a c ...

). He studied the loess deposits near Timaru and on the basis of his observations was able to show how the loess deposit recorded past variations in climate. He showed how the origin of the loess was connected to glaciers in the

Southern Alps The Southern Alps (; officially Southern Alps / Kā Tiritiri o te Moana) is a mountain range extending along much of the length of New Zealand's South Island, reaching its greatest elevations near the range's western side. The name "Southern ...

and investigated how glaciers moved and how sediments were transported. His major scientific work was a short book on the geology of

South Canterbury South Canterbury is the area of the Canterbury Region of the South Island of New Zealand bounded by the Rangitata River in the north and the Waitaki River (the border with the Otago Region) to the south. The Pacific Ocean and ridge of the Southe ...

, which was republished in 2014. He died on 12 June 1927 and was buried at Timaru. In 2018 Roger Fagg and Ian Smalley introduced a new term ‘''Hardcastle Hollows''’ for closed, isolated depressions in loess landscapes (such a forms were first noted by John Hardcastle in the 1880s, and discussed in his book from 1908).

References

Citations

*Hardcastle, J. 1889. The origin of the loess deposits on the Timaru plateau. Transactions & Procccedings of the New Zealand Institute 22, 406–414 (on line: Royal Society of New Zealand http://rsnz.natlibgovt.nz; reproduced in Loess Letter supplement 23, November 1988). *Hardcastle, J. 1890. On the Timaru loess as a climate register. Transcations & Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute 23, 324–332 (on line: Royal Society of New Zealand http://rsnz.natlib.govt.nz; reproduced in Loess Letter supplement 23, November 1988). *Hardcastle, J. 1908. Notes on the Geology of South Canterbury. Timaru Herald, Timaru. 62pp. republished by Loess Letter, Leicester University 2014. *Smalley, I.J., Fagg,R. 2014. John Hardcastle looks at the Timaru loess: Climatic signals are observed, and fragipans. Quaternary International https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2014.06.042 {{DEFAULTSORT:Hardcastle, John Paleoclimatologists New Zealand climatologists People from Timaru People from Wakefield 1847 births 1927 deaths British emigrants to New Zealand