Gudex. — Succession of Tertiary Bed* in Pareora District. 245 



beds alternating with each other for many hundred feet, and are correlated 

 with the Curiosity Shop series of Middle Tertiary age. The prominent 

 dolerite sheet which extends from the summit of Mount Horrible to Tirnaru 

 is compared with that of the Harper Hills, and it is considered as closing 

 the marine deposits of the district. An earlier eruption of dolerite, forming 

 an intercalation in the marine series, is stated to outcrop on the western 

 slopes of Mount Horrible. 



In 1873 Hutton, in his Catalogue of the Tertiary MoUusca, &c, introduced 

 the Pareora formation as one of the four chief divisions of the Tertiary, 

 dividing it into an upper and a lower group, but he identified no fossils from 

 Pareora, and was uncertain whether this locality should be referred to the 

 upper or lower group. The reasons for the choice of the name for the 

 formation are quite obscure. 



McKav in 1877 visited the Pareora district in the course of an examina- 

 tion of the younger rocks skirting the Canterbury Plains between Waipara 

 and Oamaru. The succession is described in terms of the Cretaceo-Tertiary 

 succession of the Waipara district. From his account, together with a 

 section through the district from north-west to south-east, the following 

 succession may be pieced together : (1) The silts of the Timaru Downs ; 



(2) older gravels, with sands and lignites, resting unconformably on (3) ; 



(3) grey sands, with beds of shells, overlying dark-blue sandy beds with 

 concretions (Pareora beds) ; (4) light-grey marly sandstone (grey marls) ; 

 (5) calcareous greensands (Weka Pass stone) ; (6) chalky limestone (Amuri 

 limestone) ; (7) sharp grey quartzose sands, with occasional beds of pebbles, 

 often containing sharks' teeth (concretionary greensands, saurian beds, &c). 

 The junction between the Pareora beds and the so-called "grey marls" was 

 not observed, but an unconformity is presumably indicated by the absence 

 of the Mount Brown beds of the Waipara succession. 



In 1905 Park, in discussing the relations existing between the Pareora 

 and Oamaru series, referred briefly to the Pareora district. He considered 

 the sections at the lower and upper ends of the Pareora Gorge as too obscure 

 to be of value for the determination of the relations between the beds 

 containing the " Pareora fauna " and the Oamaru stone, and stated that 

 at White Rock River the fossiliferous clays and sandstones there exposed 

 rest on the basement rock of the district. Lists of fossils from the sand- 

 stones of the Pareora River at the lower end of the gorge, the bluish-green 

 sandy clays at White Rock, and the limestone on the south bank of the 

 Tengawai River near Cave are given, the latter being correlated with the 

 Mount Brown beds. 



Park's general conclusion was that the Pareora series was an integral 

 part of the Oamaru series, which when completely developed includes 

 two limestones separated by the Hutchinson Quarry and Awamoa beds, 

 and that the Pareora fauna is only found in beds underlying the Waitaki 

 stone, to which all the limestones in South Canterbury are apparently 

 referred. 



In 1908 Hardcastle published a small pamphlet on the geology of South 

 Canterbury, in which the Tertiary rocks are dealt with more from a point 

 of view of climate than of general stratigraphy. The lowest beds, the 

 coal-measures, are comparatively thin, consisting of white or pale-coloured 

 clays, beds of sand (usually white, of all degrees of fineness and coarseness), 

 white grits and gravels of quartz, and seams of coal or lignite. The climate 

 was considered to be mild, without frost, allowing a luxuriant vegetation 

 to flourish, and the above beds were considered as terrestrial, the whiteness 



