244 Transactions. 



Art. XXVI. — The Succession of Tertiary Beds in the Pareora District, 



Smith Canterbury. 



By M. C. Gudex, M.A., M.Sc. 



[Read before the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury. 1st December, 1915 ; received by 

 Editors, 31st December, 1917 ; issued separately, 24th June, 191S.] 



Plates XVI, XVII. 



Contents 



Field-work and Acknowledgments. Detailed Descriptions by Localities. 



Introduction. Table of Fossil Mollusca. 



General Description of the Stratigraphy. Bibliography. 



Field-work and Acknowledgments. 



The field-work on which this paper is based was carried out prior to 

 October, 1914, but illness prevented the completion of the paper for 

 publication at that time. Since then the interesting discoveries made by- 

 Messrs. Speight and Thomson in the Castle Hill Basin and by Professor 

 Marshall at Wangaloa have thrown new light on the classification and 

 correlation of the younger rocks of New Zealand, and a more detailed 

 examination of the lower beds in the Pareora district has become desirable. 

 I hope to make additional collections from these beds in 1918. 



My thanks are due to Mr. H. Suter for assistance in the identifications 

 of fossils, to Dr. Thomson for the identification of the brachiopods from 

 the limestones and for much help in the arrangement of this paper, and to 

 Mr. R. Speight for the assistance and encouragement so freely given at all 

 times. 



Introduction. 



Although the Pareora district was one of the earliest to be visited as a 

 locality for fossils, and has given its name to one of the main divisions of 

 the New Zealand Tertiaries in older classifications, no careful examination 

 has hitherto been made of its stratigraphy. Its geology, in addition, 

 presents other features of great interest, in which are included the physio- 

 graphy and structure, the existence of a great sheet of dolerite, and the 

 presence of thick deposits of yellow clay considered to be a loess. The 

 present paper deals only with the stratigraphy of the Tertiary beds, and 

 covers the area between the Otaio and Tengawai Rivers. 



The first geologist to visit the district was W. Mantell (1850), who 

 traversed the coastal part on his journey from Christchurch to Dunedin 

 in 1848. He mentions the presence of a vesicular volcanic rock at Timaru, 

 and states that he was informed that a bed of coal, 10 ft. thick, cropped 

 out on the banks of a stream inland of Timaru. 



Haast in 1865 examined the country between Mount Horrible and 

 Timaru, and the banks of the Pareora River, with a view to obtaining a 

 water-supply for Timaru. The Tertiary beds are described as consisting 

 of tufaceous limestones, calcareous sandstones, and marly and argillaceous 



