My Space: Neville Hudson

As keeper of the University’s rocks, Dr Neville Hudson manages vast geological collections.

In his role as a School of Environment technician, Neville oversees everything from 3.8-billion-year-old rocks from Isua in Greenland to fossilised whale vertebrae and immense ancient crystals.

The specimens are housed in towering banks of trays in a warehouse tucked away in industrial St Johns. Among them, fossils are the most numerous – some discovered by Neville himself in Port Waikato, Kawhia and Awakino during his earlier exploits as a biostratigrapher (someone who dates rock layers via the fossils contained within them).

The collections are nationally and internationally important, says Neville – and they’re fascinating.

Propped against one wall is a replica of a monster, 1.4-metre-long fossilised clam from the Kaipara Harbour. There are remains of New Zealand marine creatures called trilobites, visually akin to slaters, which are 500 million years old.

In the geothermal collection there are cores drilled between 1955 and 1965 from locations now completely protected; stalactites and stalagmites make up a collection of their own; and there are fossils of land snails and moa bones. Oddities include shells and coral seized at the border.

Spending his days surrounded by pre-history, does Neville think he’s developed a different sense of time than the rest of us?

“Yes and no,” he says. “I guess I’ve got the normal sense of time that everybody else has, but also an understanding that something that looks like it was created by the animal yesterday – a shell or something – could be 10,000 years old, could be several million years old, depending on exactly what kind of shell it is, what creature it was.”

Such a sprawling collection is never quite tamed; there’s always something to be done. On a typical day, Neville prepares samples for loan; processes returned loans; sorts, accessions and files uncatalogued material; and edits and updates catalogues.

An expert in the mid-Jurassic period, between 178 million and 164 million years ago, he’s a co-author of the newly updated New Zealand Geological Timescale, the definitive guide to the ages of the rocks, fossils and minerals of these Shaky Isles.

Despite his love of fossils, Neville doesn’t have a collection of these at home. Instead, the keen amateur entomologist has a large insect collection. He has also authored papers on palaeontology and geology, moths, and the future of university collections.

The collections moved out of rented premises last year into the University-owned St Johns facility, but Neville won’t get to enjoy the new site for long. After nearly 30 years of managing geological specimens, retirement is near. Which begs the question: Who will be our next rock star?

- Paul Panckhurst