Marshall and Uttley. — Localities for Fossils at Oamarii. 299 



It is only now that the labours of Mr. H. Suter, to whom the authors are 

 most deeply indebted, are rendering complete identification possible. 



An attempt has been made by the authors to collect as fully as possible 

 from some definite horizon in the district, with the object of finding out 

 exactly what species are associated together in the more fossiliferous beds. 

 The results so far obtained are somewhat surprising, and they show -at least 

 that previous collecting has been far from complete, and that generaliza- 

 tions based upon them are far from convincing. 



Collections have been made from four different localities. One of these 

 —the banks of the Awamoa Stream (fig. 1) — is very well known, and has 

 yielded fossils to several collectors. A second locality — the road-cutting 

 near Pukeuri — has had collections made from it previously, but they have 

 been far from exhaustive. The other two localities have not previously 

 been described : we have called them respectively Target Gully and Ard- 

 gowan (fig. 1). 



Awamoa Beds. 



All who have collected from these are generally agreed that the horizon 

 is distinctly younger Tertiary. They were placed in the Lower Miocene 

 by Hector, in the Pareora or 

 Miocene by Hutton, and in the 

 Miocene by Park. There is thus 

 a very substantial agreement as 

 to the age of these beds. 



Hutton, in the '' Geology of 

 Otago " (p. 59), gives a list of 

 fossils which he found in the 

 Awamoa beds, which he places 

 in his Pareora system, of Mio- 

 cene age. McKay, in the " Re- 

 ports of Geological Explorations, 

 1876-77," states, on page 48, 

 that a considerable collection of 

 fossils was made from these beds, 

 but he does not give the names 

 of these fossils. In the Reports 

 for 1883-84, on page 64, he states 

 that the Awamoa beds, of Miocene 

 age, succeed the Upper Eocene 

 quite comformably ; but again he 

 gives no list of fossils from the 

 Awamoa beds. 



Park, in Trans. N.Z. Inst., 

 vol. 37, p. .512, states that the 

 Awamoa beds belong to the same 

 formation as the greensands on 

 which they rest at the rifle butts, 

 as there is in that place a com- 

 plete conformity between them. 

 These greensands are his equiva- 

 lents of the Upper Eocene of 

 McKay. Park classes both beds j, j 



in the Miocene. 



The beds are lithologically somewhat sandy blue clays, often containing 

 a little glauconite. They are well exposed in the bed of the creek, betweea 



