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Late Miocene marine fossil-rich, rock-fall, avalanche, mud-flow and debris-flow deposits adjoining and near the western margin of the Tawhero Basin, outer forearc North Island, New Zealand

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 November 2011

G. Neef
G. Neef
Affiliation:
School of Geology, University of New South Wales, Sydney, N.S.W. 2052, Australia
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Abstract

A late Miocene marine, massive fossil-rich, rock-fall/avalanche deposit, >42 m thick (base unexposed) and mud-flow and debris-flow deposits, commonly 0.2–4 m thick, are present adjoining and near to either margin of a 12 km long segment of the NE-trending Waihoki Fault/fault zone, near Pongaroa, North Wairarapa, North Island, New Zealand. The Waihoki Fault/fault zone lies in the outboard part of the onland part of the forearc. It forms the western margin of the Tawhero Basin, a forearc basin overlying a subducting Pacific plate, during 6.6–25 Ma. The basin had a partly dextral transpression history (especially in the Late Miocene) but the amount of dextral displacement along the Waihoki Fault/fault zone is unknown. It is likely that lightly indurated fossil-rich, rock-fall, mud-flow and debris-flow deposits were derived from the tops of fault slivers that were pushed upwards along the Waihoki Fault/fault zone during dextral faulting to reach the neritic zone.

Keywords

fault slice ridgesNorthern Wairarapasyndepositional faultingWaihoki Fault
Type
Research Article
Information
Earth and Environmental Science Transactions of The Royal Society of Edinburgh , Volume 90 , Issue 3 , 1999 , pp. 189 - 201
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Society of Edinburgh 1999

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