Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T05:41:11.077Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Multiple Sources for Sea-Rafted Loisels Pumice, New Zealand

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Phil Shane ,
Paul Froggatt ,
Ian Smith  and
Murray Gregory
Phil Shane
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland, New Zealand
Paul Froggatt
Affiliation:
School of Earth Sciences, Victoria University of Wellington, P.O. Box 600, Wellington, New Zealand
Ian Smith
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland, New Zealand
Murray Gregory
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland, New Zealand
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Sea-rafted Loisels Pumice is one of the few stratigraphic markers used to correlate late Holocene coastal deposits in New Zealand. Along with underlying sea-rafted products of the local Taupo eruption of ca. 1800 yr B.P., these events have been used to bracket the first arrival of humans at New Zealand. Loisels Pumice is dacitic to rhyolitic (SiO2 63–78 wt%) in composition, but individual clasts are homogeneous (SiO2 range ± 1 wt%). Characteristics include very low K2O (0.5–1.75 wt%) and Rb (<25 ppm) and a mineralogy dominated by calcic and mafic xenocrysts. Similar features are shared by pumices of the Tonga–Kermadec arc, suggesting a common tholeiitic oceanic source. Interclast diversity of Loisels Pumice suggests that it is the product of several eruptive events from different volcanoes. The differences in glass and mineral compositions found at various sites can be explained if the deposits are from different events. A multisource origin can also partially explain the discrepancy in reported 14C ages (ca. 1500–600 yr B.P.) from different localities. Therefore, the value of Loisels Pumice as a stratigraphic marker is questionable, and it does not constrain the arrival of humans. The predominant westward drift of historic Tonga–Kermadec arc pumices and prevailing ocean currents suggest a long anticlockwise semicircular transport route into the Tasman Sea before sea-rafted pumice arrival in New Zealand. The diversity of the pumices indicates that silicic eruptions frequently occur from the predominantly basic oceanic volcanoes.

Type
Research Article
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 49 , Issue 3 , May 1998 , pp. 271 - 279
Copyright
University of Washington

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bryan, W.B., 1971. Coral Sea drift pumice stranded on Eua Island, Tonga, in 1969. Geological Society of America Bulletin. 82 2799–2812.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coombs, D.S., Landis, C.A., 1966. Pumice from the South Sandwich eruption of March 1962 reaches New Zealand. Nature. 209 289–290.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Froggatt, P.C., Lowe, D.J., 1990. A review of late Quaternary silicic and some other tephra formations from New Zealand: Their stratigraphy, nomenclature, distribution, volume and age. New Zealand Journal of Geology and Geophysics. 33 89–109.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gamble, J.A., Wright, I.C., Baker, J.A., 1993. Seafloor geology and petrology in the oceanic to continental transition zone of the Kermadec–Harve–Taupo Volcanic Zone arc system, New Zealand. New Zealand Journal of Geology and Geophysics. 36 417–435.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gass, I.G., Harris, P.G., Holdgate, M.W., 1963. Pumice eruption in the area of the South Sandwich Island. Geological Magazine. 100 321–330.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gregory, M. R, 1990, Plastics: Accumulation, distribution, and environmental effects of meso-, macro-, and megalitter in surface waters and on shores of the southwest Pacific, In, Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Marine Debris. 55, 84.Google Scholar
Hawkins, J.W., 1985. Low-K rhyolitic pumice from the Tonga Ridge. Scholl, D.W., Vallier, T.L., Geology and Offshore Resources of Pacific Island Arcs—Tonga Region. 171–178.Google Scholar
Heath, R.A., 1985. A review of the physical oceanography of the seas around New Zealand—1982. New Zealand Journal of Geology and Geophysics. 19 79–124.Google Scholar
Irvine, T.N., Baragar, W.R.A., 1971. A guide to the chemical classification of the common volcanic rocks. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences. 8 523–548.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jokiel, P.L., 1990. Transport of reef corals into the Great Barrier Reef. Nature. 347 665–667.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lonsdale, P., Hawkins, J., 1985. Silicic volcanism at an off-axis geothermal field in the Mariana Trough back-arc basin. Geological Society of America Bulletin. 96 940–951.2.0.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lloyd, E.F., Nathan, S., Smith, I.E.M., Stewart, R.B., 1996. Volcanic history of Macauley Island, Kermadec Ridge, New Zealand. New Zealand Journal of Geology and Geophysics. 39 295–308.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Le Maitre, R.W., Bateman, P., Dudek, A., Keller, J., Lameyrse, L., Le Bas, M.J., Sabine, P.A., Schmid, R., Sorensen, H., Streckeisen, A., Woolley, A.R., Zanettin, B., 1989. A Classification of Igneous Rocks and Glossary of Terms. Blackwell, Oxford. Google Scholar
McFadgen, B.G., 1985. Late Holocene stratigraphy of coastal deposits between Auckland and Dunedin, New Zealand. Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand. 15 27–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McFadgen, B.G., 1994. Archaeology and Holocene sand dune stratigraphy on Chatham Island. Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand. 24 17–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Melson, W.G., Jarosewich, E., Lundquist, C.A., 1970. Eruption of Metis Shoal, Tonga, 1967–1968: Description and petrology. Smithsonian Contributions to the Earth Sciences. 4 1–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Osborne, N.M., Enright, N.J., Parnell, K.E., 1991. The age and stratigraphic significance of sea-rafted Loisels Pumice in northern New Zealand. Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand. 21 357–371.Google Scholar
Pullar, W.A., Kohn, B.P., Cox, J.E., 1977. Air-fall Kaharoa ash and Taupo Pumice, and sea-rafted Loisels Pumice, Taupo Pumice, and Leigh Pumice in northern and eastern parts of the North Island, New Zealand. New Zealand Journal of Geology and Geophysics. 20 697–717.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Richards, A.F., 1958. Transpacific distribution of floating pumice from Isla San Benedicto, Mexico. Deep Sea Research. 5 29–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robin, C., Monzier, M., Eissen, J-P., 1994. Formation of the mid-fifteenth century Kuwae caldera (Vanuatu) by an initial hydroclastic and subsequent ignimbritic eruption. Bulletin of Volcanology. 56 170–183.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shane, P.A.R., Froggatt, P.C., 1992. Composition of widespread volcanic glass in deep-sea sediments of southern Pacific Ocean: an Antarctic source inferred. Bulletin of Volcanology. 54 595–601.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shane, P.A.R., Froggatt, P.C., 1994. Discriminant function analysis of glass chemistry of New Zealand and North American tephra deposits. Quaternary Research. 41 70–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shane, P.A.R., Black, T.M., Alloway, B.V., Westgate, J.A., 1996. Early to middle Pleistocene tephrochronology of North Island, New Zealand: Implications for volcanism, tectonism and paleoenvironments. Geological Society of America Bulletin. 108 915–925.2.3.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, J.M.B., 1990. Drift disseminules on Fijian beaches. New Zealand Journal of Botany. 28 13–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sparks, R.J., Melhuish, W.H., McKee, J.W.A., Ogden, J., Palmer, J.G., Molloy, B.P.J., 1995. 14 . Radiocarbon. 37 155–163.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wellman, H.W., 1962. Holocene of the North Island of New Zealand: A coastal reconnaissance. Transactions of the Royal Society of New Zealand. 1 29–99.Google Scholar
Wright, I.C., Parson, L.M., Gamble, J.A., 1996. Evolution and interaction of migrating cross-arc volcanism and backarc rifting: An example from the southern Harve Trough (35°20′–37°S). Journal of Geophysical Research. 101 22071–22086.CrossRefGoogle Scholar