Te Kuiti Group (Late Eocene - Oligocene) lithostratigraphy east of Taranaki Basin in central-western North Island, New Zealand

Abstract

This report presents a lithostratigraphy for the Late Eocene - Oligocene Te Kuiti Group that crops out in central-western North Island, New Zealand, between Port Waikato in the north and Awakino in the south. The Te Kuiti Group is a mixed carbonate-siliciclastic succession and includes extensive limestone development in its upper parts. The group is up to several hundred metres thick, and accumulated unconformably above indurated Triassic and Jurassic sedimentary basement. The Te Kuiti Group accumulated east of Taranaki Fault and contains a record of sequence and unconformity development that helps constrain the tectonic development of eastern Taranaki Basin. In particular, it records the timing of the mid-Oligocene transition from extension to crustal shortening. Most of the report is however concerned with rationalisation of the group’s lithostratigraphy to enable the geological signals within it to be inferred.