Middle Holocene mangroves in Hawke's Bay, New Zealand

Abstract

Pollen of the endemic mangrove Avicennia marina var. resinifera have been found in middle Holocene sediments in Te Paeroa Lagoon, Wairoa, northern Hawke's Bay, on the east coast of New Zealand. The locality is approximately 140 km south of the southernmost modern occurrence of mangrove on the east coast of New Zealand in Opotiki Harbour, in the Bay of Plenty, and about 40 km south of the previously most southerly known Holocene fossil mangrove locality at Sponge Bay, Gisborne, in Poverty Bay. Radiocarbon dates indi cate that Avicennia became locally extinct between about 6500 and 6000 years ago.