New Zealand's Geological Foundations

Abstract

New Zealand is a fragment of Gondwana that, before Late Cretaceous sea floor spreading, was contiguous with Australia and Antarctica. Only about 10% of the area of continental crust in the wider New Zealand region (Zealandia) is emergent above sea level as the North and South Islands. No Precambrian cratonic core is exposed in onland New Zealand. The Cambrian to Early Cretaceous basement can be described in terms of nine major volcano-sedimentary terranes, three composite regional batholiths, and three regional metamorphic-tectonic belts that overprint the terranes and batholiths. The terranes (from west to east) are: Buller, Takaka, Brook Street, Murihiku, Maitai, Caples, Bay of Islands (part of former Waipapa), Rakaia (older Torlesse) and Pahau (younger Torlesse). The western terranes are intruded by three composite batholith (>100 km 2) sized belts of plutons: Karamea-Paparoa, Hohonu and Median, as well as by numerous smaller plutons. Median Batholith (including the Median Tectonic Zone) is a recently-recognised Cordilleran batholith that represents the site of subduction-related magmatism from ca. 375–110 Ma. Parts of the terranes and batholiths are variably metamorphosed and deformed: Devonian and Cretaceous amphibolite-granulite facies gneisses are present in Buller, Takaka, Median and Karamea-Paparoa units; Jurassic-Cretaceous subgreenschist-amphibolite facies Haast Schist overprints the Caples, Bay of Islands and Rakaia Terranes; Cretaceous subgreenschist facies Esk Head and Whakatane Mélanges bound the Pahau Terrane. In the South Island, small areas (<5 km 2 total) of Devonian, Permian, Triassic and Jurassic Gondwana sequences have been identified. In the North Island a widespread Late Jurassic overlap sequence, Waipa Supergroup (part of former Waipapa Terrane), has recently been proposed.