Barnacle-dominated limestone with giant cross-beds in a non-tropical, tide-swept, Pliocene forearc seaway, Hawke's Bay, New Zealand

Abstract

Pliocene, non-tropical, widespread and locally thick (up to 100 m) limestones occur in Hawke's Bay, eastern North Island, where they are intimately associated with very thick ( > 5 km), terrigenous-dominated, Neogene sequences that formed in a tectonically active convergent margin setting. The non-tropical character of the limestones is shown unequivocally by (1) the complete dominance of skeletal calcarenites and calcirudites, (2) the occurrence of oyster banks as the only in situ organic structures, (3) the dominance of barnacles, epifaunal molluscs, bryozoans, echinoderms, foraminifers, brachiopods and calcareous red algae as skeletal components, and (4) the preponderance of calcite over aragonite in the mineralogy of the skeletal grains and cements. The abundance of barnacle fragments in the limestones, and the related exclusive occurrence of only one major organic association, a barnacle-(epifaunal) bivalve-bryozoan assemblage, is striking and unusual given the extent of the limestones. Pecten and oyster valves acted as substrates for barnacle attachment, and their growth was promoted by strong tidal paleocurrents that swept the depositional setting: a long (450 km), narrow (30–50 km) forearc basin seaway, which formed between an actively deforming subduction complex to the east and an uplifting structural ridge to the west. Synsedimentary deformation promoted limestone formation on the margins of the seaway by creating current-swept, clastic-free submarine ridges that acted as the sites of carbonate production. Tidal flows dispersed the carbonate constituents and organised them into a wide spectrum of tide-influenced, cross-bedded and horizontal structures. Most spectacular are occurrences of giant tabular cross-beds, with sets 10–40 m thick and foreset dips of 7–36°, some interpreted as the deposits of major sand bars on carbonate deltas marginal to the mouths of saddles traversing the rising antiforms, and others analogous to modern linear sand ridges. The small- to large-scale planar and trough cross-beds, and the horizontal and lenticular beds that are invariably associated with the giant cross-beds and dominate most sections, represent mainly the deposits of sand waves and sand sheets at inner- to mid-shelf depths in the seaway.