Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand abstracts

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Antepenultimate glacial to last glacial deposits in southern Wairarapa, New Zealand

C. G. Vucetich, P. Vella and P. N. Warnes*

In southern Wairarapa valley, north of the marine terraces adjacent to Palliser Bay, three fluvial aggradation gravel terraces with small vertical separation, at successively lower levels, represent the Porewa, Rata and Ohakea stadials of the Last Glacial Stage. Their correlative loess deposits and interbedded Kawakawa and Middle Tongariro Tephras mantle much of the lower part of the valley and higher areas to the east, providing stratigraphic control on underlying surfaces of pre-Ohakean, pre-Ratan and Pre-Porewan ages. A slightly higher terrace represents the Last Interglacial Stage. It has a cover of Francis Line Formation, predominantly fine-grained fluvial overbank deposits c.5-7 m thick, locally thicker lacustrine deposits, with overlying Porewa, Rata and Ohakea Loess with their interbedded tephras. The eastern limit of Francis Line Formation is defined approximately, and farther east the Last Interglacial Stage is represented by a paleosol, usually strong red in colour, and at places developed in thin wind-blown sand. Ahiaruhe Formation underlies Last Interglacial deposits unconformably, consists mainly of alluvial gravel, but includes relatively thin loess and fresh-water silt and sand layers, Mount Curl Tephra and a strong brown paleosol above the tephra. It is considered to represent the Penultimate Glaciation, Penultimate Interglacial, and Antepenultimate Glaciation, and was deposited in a regime of tectonic subsidence.

Keywords: river terraces; loesses; tephras; paleosols; eustatic sea-levels; tectonic deformation

(c) Journal of The Royal Society of New Zealand,

Volume 26, Number 4, December 1996, pp 469-482

PDF file of entire paper: medium quality (2991K); (scanned from paper original: notes about this process)

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