Cretaceo- Tertiary of New Zealand. 493 



in tlie old Geological Survey days, but found to be untenable, since at 

 places as distant as North Auckland and as far south as South Otago 

 both the Lower Tertiary and Cretaceous faunas are found in 

 juxtaposition. 



At Wade, north of Auckland, the Waitemata Beds rest highly 

 un conformably on the Cretaceous strata. Dr. Marshall is in error in 

 saying that this section was not described when first discovered.^ 

 The actual junction of the Tertiary Waitemata and the Cretaceous 

 beds is beautifully exposed in a vertical sea-clifi, and the figure which 

 accompanied ray report is reproduced below. 



The septarian beds everj^ where in the North Auckland district 

 underlie the hydraulic (Amuri) limestone, notably at Wade, 

 Mahurangi, Hikui'angi, Kawa-Kawa, and Batley, opposite Komiti 

 Point. Moreover, as reported at the time, I discovered blocks of 

 hydraulic limestone in the Lower Waitematas near Howick and 

 Onehunga. 



No geologist has ever doubted the Oamaruian age of the Waite- 

 matas ; and the hydraulic limestone is a member of the Cretaceous 

 coal formati(m, as proved by boreholes at Kawa-Kawa.^ 



At Shag Point in Otago, as described by me in the December, 

 1911, issue of the Geological Magazine,^ the Cretaceous strata 



Fig. 2. Section Orewa Bridge to South Head, (a) Thin-bedded Tertiary 

 sandstones and clays ; (6) sandy clays with septaria. 



form the north wall of the Shag Valley. They are sharply tilted 

 and folded, and rest on the Palaeozoic mica-schists. The floor of the 

 valley is occupied by horizontal or gently dipping Lower Tertiary 

 strata, typically Oamaruian, which, as so clearly brought out by 

 Mr. A. (Gordon Macdonald in his carefully contoured geological maps 

 of this area, abut against the Cretaceous Series from the head of the 

 valley to the sea, and going southward rest on the mica-schists. 



Professor Cox and Mr. A. McKay believed that a fault existed 

 along the north side of the Shag Valley, and this view fitted in quite 

 consistently with the old view of the Geological Survey that the 

 Tertiary beds in the floor of the valley were the horizontal equivalents 

 of the Cretaceous Shag Point Beds. But Dr. Marshall rightly enough 

 recognizes that the Tertiary beds cannot be the time equivalents of 

 the Cretaceous Shag Point Beds, and contends that the Tertiary beds 

 follow the Shag Point Beds conformably, but have been faulted down 

 to the floor of the valley. The supposed fault was the natural 



1 Geol. Eeports and Explorations, 1886-7, p. 226. 



^ A. McKay, Geol. Eeports and Explorations, 1883, p. 133. 



^ J. Park, "The Unconformable Eelationship of the Lower Tertiaries and 

 Upper Cretaceous of New Zealand " r Geol. Mag., Dec. V, Vol. VIII, No. 570, 

 pp. 539-49. 



