210 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION C. 



3.— REPORT ON GLACIATION PROBLEMS IN NEW ZEALAND 



By R. SPEIGHT, M.Sc, F.G.S. 



The following is a brief summary of the results of investigation 

 during the last two years into the problems of New Zealand Glacia- 

 tion. 



The first work to be noted in point of time is that resulting 

 from the expedition to the Auckland and Campbell Islands organised 

 by the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury, notice of which has 

 already been given by Dr. Marshall to the last meeting of the 

 Association. In the volume which has recently appeared containing 

 the scientific results of the expedition both Marshall and Speight 

 have concluded that the islands were subjected to a glaciation of 

 moderate intensitj/, a conclusion based on the presence of un- 

 doubted lateral moraines, accumulations of huge angular boulders 

 in the lower part of the river valleys, glacier cirques, hanging 

 valleys, and glaciated landscapes, but no evidence was found of 

 icesheet conditions obtaining over the area. No decided reason can 

 be assigned for the glaciation. though there are signs that the land 

 was formerly higher, but not sufficiently high to account for all the 

 phenomena. 



In Bulletin No. 6, N.Z. Geological Survey, dealing with the 

 Geology of the Mikonui Subdivision, Morgan describes the physio- 

 graphical features of a section of Westland stretching from the sea 

 to the crest of the Southern Alps, and discusses the features and 

 age of the glacial deposits of the area. He concludes that there was 

 a glaciation in Late Cretaceous or in Early Tertiary times, and that 

 the most recent glaciation commenced in the late Pliocene, and 

 after rea hing a maximum in the Pleistocene gradually waned 

 till the present. Morgan agrees with Haast in attributing the 

 extension of the glaciers to the former larger size of the snowfields, 

 and he concludes that as the valleys were eroded deeper the fields 

 became smaller and the glaciers shrank in consequence, a result 

 probably accentuated by a slight lowering of the land.^ 



In the same volume there are several papers by Park, in which 

 he maintains that there was a Pleistocene Ice Age in New Zealand 

 corresponding with that which occurred in the Northern Hemisphere. 

 This opinion was first advanced by him in Bulletin No. 7, N.Z. 

 Geol. Survey (Geology of the Queenstown Subdivision, 1909), where 

 he maintained that the South Island was subjected to a glaciation 

 from an icesheet of Polar origin, that the ice came down to the sea- 

 coast near Dunedin, but that it did not extend any further north 

 than Cook Strait. He followed this up with papers, controversial 

 and otherwise, showing that these conditions extended to the North 

 Island, a conclusion based chiefly on the reported discovery by him 

 of glacial till in the valley of the Hautapu River, a tributary of the 

 Upper Rangitikei, about thirty miles to the south of Ruapehu. He 

 has subsequently in his "Geology of New Zealand" recorded the 



1 In Trans. N.Z. Institute, Vol. XLII., 1910, in a paper entitled " Geological Notes on the West 

 Coast Sounds," Speight gives a reference to the landscape features of the Fiord Region, 

 which depend on ice action. 



