Uttley. — Tertiary Geology, Wharekuri to Otiahe River. 159 



The beds dip 70° in a direction N. 10° E. Beds (a), (c), and (e) are 

 gravel deposits, composed of pebbles up to the size of a cricket-ball, inter- 

 mingled with fine sands. The pebbles consists of greywacke, sandstone, 

 and quartz, all well water-worn. Bed (c) contained a piece of lignitized 

 wood. Beds (6) and (_/) are light-coloured greenish-grey unctuous clays. 

 Bed {d) is a fine micaceous sandy bed. On the opposite side of Wharekuri 

 Creek, not 20 yards away, a steep face of the Maitai rocks rises abruptly 

 from the bed of the creek. Slickensided surfaces were noted, and much 

 crush-breccia ; and extensive faulting is everywhere indicated. The steeply 

 dipping beds just described show no contact with the other Tertiary rocks 

 in the area. 



McKay's section (1882b, p. 101) certainly indicates the order in which 

 the various rocks crop out, as the Wharekuri Creek is followed from its 

 junction with the Waitaki River to the point past the coal-mine, where the 

 tilted beds occur, except that the limestone does not occur in the section 

 exposed in the creek. The tilted beds just described were said by McKay 

 to be of Upper Pareora (Awamoan) age, and to contain the coal deposits 

 that are worked at Wharekuri. He observed no junction of these tilted 

 beds, and the quartz, sandstone, and clays in which the coal-seam occurs 

 are separated from them by slope deposits and heavy river-gravels. The 

 composition of the beds is also quite different from the beds associated 

 with the coal at Wharekuri. Coal-mine. Park (1905, p. 524) stated that 

 there was no evidence to show that the coal-rocks lie at the top of the 

 sequence. The tilted beds, however, may lie conformably at the top' of 

 the Tertiary series, although this cannot be definitely affirmed, as no 

 junction was observed. They have certainly been involved along with the 

 Tertiaries in the tectonic movements of the district, the evidence for which 

 is seen at many points in the Waitaki Valley. These tilted gravels appear 

 to be widespread in the Upper Waitaki Valley and in the Waihao district, 

 fdr McKay described another section in the former locality as follows : 

 " In this section [Quail Burn] the lowest beds seen are soft sandstones, 

 divided into thick bands by beds of greenish greasy clay. These beds dip 

 north-west at an angle of 45°. ... At two or three places along the 

 south-east slopes of these hills pieces of lignite have been found and . . . 

 having, as I consider, proved that the Wharekuri coal-seam farther down 

 the Waitaki occurs in beds of this age, there is more than a possibility of 

 coal being found near the mouth of the Quail Burn." No other geologist 

 would agree with McKay in the inference drawn in the last part of this 

 quotation, but the description of these gravel-beds indicates that they are 

 similar to the tilted beds at Wharekuri. 



In the Waihao district the gravels are also often tilted, and Hector 

 refers to these in the following words : " With the Waitaki Valley as it now 

 IS these beds have no direct connection, since they abundantly show that 

 movements of the land involving a considerable alteration of its surface 

 configuration have taken place since their deposition ; the beds being 

 frequently tilted at high angles, especially in districts distant from the 

 coast-line " (1882, p. xxv). These tilted gravels in the Wharekuri locality 

 are overlain unconformably by the high - level terrace - gravels (McKay 

 1882b, p. 102). 



(2.) AwahoJcomo Basin. 



McKay (1882a, p. 66) states that the Otekaike limestone at Wharekuri 

 " is traceable as a continuous line for three miles." The exposure, how- 

 ever, has nothing like the extent ascribed to it by McKay ; it crops out 



