Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand abstracts

The Nelsonian Stage: a new Early Triassic local stage for New Zealand

H. J. Campbell

Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences, P.O. Box 30 368, Lower Hutt, New Zealand. Email: h.campbell@gns.cri.nz

S. R. Owen

Department of Geology, University of Otago, P.O. Box 56, Dunedin, New Zealand. Present address: 30 Tilbrook Street, Glen Forrest, WA 6071, Australia.

Abstract   A new stage, herein named the Nelsonian Stage, is formally defined for sparsely fossiliferous New Zealand sequences of Early Triassic age. In terms of the local New Zealand stage scheme, the Nelsonian Stage is part of the Gore Series and occurs above the Late Permian Makarewan Stage and below the Middle Triassic Malakovian Stage. The base of the Nelsonian Stage is defined by the first appearance of the ammonoid Durvilleoceras within sequences of the Maitai Group that are exposed in the Nelson and Southland regions of the South Island of New Zealand. The Nelsonian Stage is attributed a middle Induan to early Anisian age range in terms of global stages, and represents a time-span of about eight million years.

Keywords  Nelsonian Stage; Induan; Olenekian; Anisian; Early Triassic; new local stage; Durvilleoceras; Maitai Group; Dun Mountain-Maitai Terrane; New Zealand

R02030 Received 20 August 2002; accepted 13 January 2003; published 30 April 2003
© Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand, Volume 33, Number 1, March 2003, pp 97-108

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