Waihi mine strike centenary marked

The centenary of the Waihi Gold Mine strike during which a miner was killed is being commemorated in the Hauraki District town over the weekend.

During the bitter six-month dispute, striking miner Fred Evans was kicked and beaten as strike-breakers and police fought unionists on 12 November 1912.

Historian Mark Derbysays although the strike subsequently collapsed it was very significant as it led directly to the formation of the Labour Party.

Several of the figures active in the Waihi strike including Michael Joseph Savage, Bob Semple and Paddy Webb entered Parliament in the first Labour Government in 1935 and held office for a number of years.For decades scientists have grappled with one of our planet's greatest biogeographical mysteries: how the geologic history of the Amazon River basin has shaped its magnificent ecosystem. Now new research describes sedimentary evidence from eastern Colombia and northwestern Brazil that suggests the enormous basin was covered by ocean water at least twice in the past. The Amazon is famous for its river, which only started flowing around nine million years ago. Ideas about the structure of the preriver landscape include a flooded rain forest, a huge freshwater lake and a fan-shaped, continent-spanning network of streams. Understanding the shape of this ancient landscape is crucial to learning what spawned the staggering biodiversity of the Amazon rain forest.

One theory posits that marine waters inundated western Amazonia during the Miocene epoch,