New Zealand Journal of Geology and Geophysics abstracts

---

Pleistocene coastal terraces of Kaikoura Peninsula and the Marlborough coast, South Island, New Zealand

YOKO OTA

Geography Department
Senshu University
2-1-1 Higashi-mita
Tamaku, Kawasaki, 214, Japan

BRAD PILLANS

Division of Archaeology and Natural History
Research School of Pacific Studies
Australian National University
Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia

KELVIN BERRYMAN
ALAN BEU

Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences
P.O. Box 30 368
Lower Hutt, New Zealand

TAKATOSHI FUJIMORI

Keio Gijuku Futsubu Junior High School
Kohokuku, Yokohama, 223, Japan

TAKAHIRO MIYAUCHI

Department of Earth Sciences
Chiba University, Chiba, 260, Japan

GLENN BERGER

Quaternary Sciences Center
Desert Research Institute
Reno, Nevada, 89506-0220, U.S.A.

With an appendix

Mollusca from Parikawa locality

A.G. BEU

Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences
Lower Hutt, New Zealand

F.M. CLIMO

Museum of New Zealand
P.O. Box 467
Wellington, New Zealand

Abstract  Pleistocene marine terraces along the Marlborough coast, South Island, New Zealand, have been re-examined with detailed stratigraphic observations, accurate height data, and amino acid and thermoluminescence (TL) geochronology. Marine terraces range in age from c. 220 ka (oxygen isotope stage 7) to c. 60 ka (oxygen isotope stage 3), in the area from Cape Campbell to Conway River. At Kaikoura Peninsula, five marine terraces are preserved. The marine fauna, loess stratigraphy, and amino acid dating of Tawera spissa, from the Kaikoura I (highest) terrace and from the highest terrace at Haumuri Bluffs (Tarapuhi Terrace), indicate a correlation to oxygen isotope substage 5c, with an age of 100 ka.

North of the Clarence River, marine terraces (including the Parikawa Formation) are correlated to oxygen isotope substage 5e of the last interglacial. TL dating of loess supports this interpretation. The Winterholme Formation terrace at Kekerengu is reinterpreted as a last glaciation fluvioglacial terrace graded to a low-stand of the sea. Therefore, we abandon the use of Winterholme and Parikawa Formations and, instead, correlate terraces to the geochronometrically and astronomically tuned oxygen isotope chronology.

Maximum late Pleistocene uplift rates vary from c. 2 m/ka at Conway River, 1.3 m/ka at Haumuri Bluffs, 1.1 m/ka at Kaikoura, and 1.1 m/ka at Clarence River, to c. 0.5 m/ka in the Long Point area, c. 10 km south of Cape Campbell. Local structures, rather than regional uplift related to subduction, appear to be primarily responsible for uplift, and in at least three of the four areas, the causative faults are contractional fault/fold structures between or south of the major strike-slip faults of the Marlborough fault system.

Keywords  Pleistocene; marine terrace; fluvial terrace; Kaikoura Peninsula; Marlborough coast; molluscan assemblage; amino acid dating; thermoluminescence dating; tectonic deformation; Quaternary; chronology

New Zealand Journal of Geology and Geophysics, 1996, Vol. 39: 51-73

0028-8306/96/0051 $2.50/0 (c) The Royal Society of New Zealand 1996

PDF file of entire paper: medium quality (2825K); (scanned from paper original: notes about this process)

---

This year's abstracts | Journal home page | All abstracts | Publishing home page