Abstract
Abstract Neritic deposits of Eocene and Oligocene age, partly underlain by coal measures, occur over large areas of south-west Auckland, west Nelson and north Westland, and north-east Otago (Waitaki). The well described deposits of south-west Auckland and Waitaki consist of sedimentary units bounded by unconformities and each containing distinctive fossils. Each sedimentary unit reflects an increase, each unconformity a decrease, in depth of sea, and the successions represent cycles of deposition and non-deposition or erosion. The succession of cycles in Waitaki matches that in south-west Auckland. The early Tertiary of Nelson and Westland has not been fully described but seems to contain comparable sedimentary cycles. The changes in sea depth could have been caused either by essentially uniform vertical tectonic oscillations of virtually the whole of New Zealand, or by eustatic sea-level fluctuations. If eustatic sea-level fluctuations occurred they should have affected strata of the same age and facies ...
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