PLEISTOCENE COASTAL TERRACES OF KAIKOURA PENINSULA AND THE MARLBOROUGH COAST, SOUTH-ISLAND, NEW-ZEALAND

Pleistocene marine terraces along the Marlborough coast, South Island, New Zealand, have been re-examined with detailed stratigraphic observ ations, accurate height data, and amino acid and thermoluminescence (T L) geochronology. Marine terraces range in age from c. 220 ka (oxygen isotope stage 7) to c. 60 ka (oxygen isotope stage 3), in the area fro m Cape Campbell to Conway River. At Kaikoura Peninsula, five marine te rraces are preserved. The marine fauna, loess stratigraphy, and amino acid dating of Tawera spissa, from the Kaikoura I (highest) terrace an d from the highest terrace at Haumuri Bluffs (Tarapuhi Terrace), indic ate a correlation to oxygen isotope substage 5c, with an age of 100 ka . North of the Clarence River, marine terraces (including the Parikawa Formation) are correlated to oxygen isotope substage 5e of the last i nterglacial. TL dating of loess supports this interpretation. The Wint erholme Formation terrace at Kekerengu is reinterpreted as a last glac iation fluvioglacial terrace graded to a low-stand of the sea. Therefo re, we abandon the use of Winterholme and Parikawa Formations and, ins tead, correlate terraces to the geochronometrically and astronomically tuned oxygen isotope chronology. Maximum late Pleistocene uplift rate s vary from c. 2 m/ka at Conway River, 1.3 m/ka at Haumuri Bluffs, 1.1 m/ka at Kaikoura, and 1.1 m/ka at Clarence River, to c. 0.5 m/ka in t he Long Point area, c. 10 km south of Cape Campbell. Local structures, rather than regional uplift related to subduction, appear to be prima rily responsible for uplift, and in at least three of the four areas, the causative faults are contractional fault/fold structures between o r south of the major strike-slip faults of the Marlborough fault syste m.