Stratigraphy, landsnail faunas, and paleoenvironmental history of Late Holocene coastal dunes, Tauroa Peninsula, northern New Zealand

The post -700 years BP depositional history of the Holocene coastal dunebel t on northwestern Tauroa Peninsula involved an initial progradational phase , then a subsequent predominantly stable phase that began some time after 6 50 years BP, followed by a highly unstable phase from late prehistoric time to the present-day. Fossil landsnail faunas indicate that sandfield and pr ostrate shrubland have been the main vegetation types on the dunefield sinc e at least 700 years BP, but that taller shrubland established locally duri ng the later part of the prehistoric period of dunefield stability. Five sp ecies of landsnails became extinct on the dunefield in late prehistoric-his toric time, probably as a result of vegetation disturbance cause by widespr ead dune mobilisation and erosion.