70 Transactions. 



of all the underlying Notocene [Cretaceous and Tertiary] beds — by assum- 

 ing that a neighbouring area was differentially elevated to the extent of 

 perhaps as much as 12,000 ft. without seriously disturbing the horizontal 

 attitude of that portion of the Notocene series which, a little later, had 

 the conglomerate deposited upon it." This hypothetic assumption does 

 not make the position easier. By all the criteria of stratigraphical geology, 

 whatever its origin, there must be a time-break between the conglomerate- 

 breccia and the " grey marls." 



Involvement of Post-Miocene Conglomerate. 



Along the base of the Inland Kaikoura Range the Cretaceous and 

 Tertiary deposits, including the post-Miocene conglomerate, are down-faulted 

 towards the north-west, and appear to plunge below the Juro-Triassic 

 rocks composing that chain. 



There is no evidence that the Kaikoura chains were ever reduced to a 

 sea-level peneplain, and all surmises to the contrary are purely hypothetical. 

 At the time the Tahoran peneplain was being base-levelled the Kaikouras 

 existed as ridges, separated by the Clarence Valley, into which the sea 

 during the Albian stage gradually encroached. The advancing sea first 

 formed a basal bed of conglomerate, which is entirely composed of material 

 derived from the neighbouring mountain- walls. As the sea continued its 

 invasion of the Clarence Valley the bed of conglomerate spread slowly 

 landward, forming a deltaic deposit, on the emergent surface of which 

 vegetation grew till destroyed and buried by sediments deposited by the 

 advancing sea. 



If the sea advanced from the north-east, as seems to be indicated by 

 the distribution of the Cretaceous strata and Amuri limestone, the con- 

 glomerates laid down at the head of the sound should be coeval with the 

 fine marine sediments deposited in the deeper water near the entrance of 

 the sound. As the transgression progressed the conglomerates became 

 everywhere covered with the finer muds and sands of the Upper Utatur. 



At the beginning of the Cenomanian the advancing sea overspread the 

 base-levelled Tahoran peneplain and covered it with a sheet of Upper 

 Cretaceous sediments. During the Eocene uplift the newly formed Upper 

 Cretaceous sediments in the Clarence fiord, in north and west Nelson, 

 and throughout Westland, Southland, and south Otago, were completely 

 removed by denudation. Only in north Otago and Canterbury did some 

 remnants escape the general destruction of this period. 



The Eocene uplift was followed by slow persistent submergence, during 

 which the Oamaruian and Awatere sediments were deposited. At the close 

 of the Miocene, differential uplift began along the axial chains, accom- 

 panied at the north and south by a tilting movement that pivoted about 

 a zone extending from Napier to Wanganui, along which submergence 

 continued till the close of the Pliocene, as witnessed by the newer Pliocene 

 beds on the coasts of Hawke's Bay and Wanganui Bight. The movement 

 was faster along the axial divide than at the east and west coasts, and 

 this generated crustal stresses which found relief by fracturing and faulting, 

 followed by the uplift and tilting of mountain blocks. 



There was also, as already indicated, a general tilting of both ends of 

 New Zealand coeval with the axial uplift. This tilt was greatest in Auck- 

 land and Otago, and least in the Napier -Wanganui zone. As a consequence 

 of this unequal uplift the youngest marine strata known in Otago and 

 south Canterbury are late Miocene ; in Marlborough, older Pliocene : and 

 in the Wanganui and Hawke's Bay areas, newer Pliocene. 



