New Zealand Journal of Geology and Geophysics abstracts

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Sedimentology and stratigraphy of Prospect Formation, Te Anau Basin, western Southland, New Zealand

V. MANVILLE

Department of Geology
University of Otago
P.O. Box 56
Dunedin, New Zealand*

*Present address: Wairakei Research Centre, Private Bag 2000, Taupo, New Zealand.

Abstract  The syntectonic late Miocene-Pliocene Prospect Formation, comprising over 3000 m of gravels and sands, forms the uppermost preglacial unit in the central Te Anau Basin, western Southland, New Zealand. Its inferred distal correlatives, the marine Rowallan Sandstone and Te Waewae Formation, lie to the south in the Waiau Basin. These two units are removed from the Waiau Group and, together with the previously ungrouped Prospect Formation, are placed in a newly proposed lithostratigraphic unit, the Wilderness Group.

The largely nonmarine Prospect Formation is wholly subdivided into five members on the basis of lithofacies associations and petrofacies. The basal Forest Burn and Umbrella Flat Members (new) were deposited by coarse-grained deltaic systems which prograded across the marine Te Anau Basin from petrologically distinct uplifted basement terranes to either side. The upper part of the formation is dominated by gravelly braided stream deposits, subdivided into the Mt York, Little Creek, and Key Members on the basis of petrofacies and lithofacies assemblages.

Keywords  Prospect Formation; stratigraphy; Te Anau Basin; sedimentology; syntectonic; Rowallan Sandstone; Te Waewae Formation; Wilderness Group; western Southland; new stratigraphic names

New Zealand Journal of Geology and Geophysics, 1996, Vol. 39: 429-444

0028-8306/96/3903-0429 $2.50/0 (c) The Royal Society of New Zealand 1996

PDF file of entire paper: medium quality (2798K); (scanned from paper original: notes about this process)

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