Cretaceous‐Tertiary tectonic history of the Fiordland margin, New Zealand

Abstract

Integration of regional seismic reflection data with swath bathymetry and imagery data and onshore geology has revealed the complex sequence of tectonic events that have affected the development of the offshore Fiordland margin. There are no core or dredge samples to constrain the timing of these events, but comparison with recent work on the Tertiary evolution of the Australia‐Pacific plate margin provided a temporal framework for the subsurface interpretation. The integrated dataset allows the prediction of the age and likely lithology of the seismic sequences, the timing of tectonic events, and details of how structures along the Fiordland plate margin developed in response to changes in relative plate motion direction.

We conclude that Cretaceous rifting in the Tasman Sea formed half‐grabens along Caswell High and beneath the Fiordland Basin. Up to several kilometres of Cretaceous to Early Eocene sediments, probably terrestrial and marginal marine sediments derived from the Campbell Plateau, are preserved in these grabens.

A second phase of rifting in the Eocene, associated with the formation of the Southeast Tasman Sea, resulted in the separation of the Caswell High and Fiordland Basin block from the Campbell Plateau and the start of its journey northwest, northeast, and finally east to its present position adjacent to Fiordland. The rift sediments are overlain by a relatively uniform sequence, probably Late Eocene to Mid Miocene deep‐water carbonates. Strike‐slip faults developed along the continental shelf and slope in the Miocene, and increasing margin‐normal shortening in the Pliocene‐Pleistocene, led to the development of thrust faults along the margins of sediment lobes in the Fiordland and Milford Basins. The youngest sediments are up to several kilometres thick, probably Late Miocene‐Quaternary elastics derived from Westland and Fiordland.

Keywords:

• sedimentation
• stratigraphy
• structure
• Fiordland
• New Zealand
• plate tectonics