AUCKLAND’S SITE

Press, Volume C, Issue 29436, 11 February 1961, Page 4

AUCKLAND’S SITE

Description By Geologist

“The Press" Special Service AUCKLAND. Feb. 10 The sites of Auckland and New Zealand were at the bottom of the sea 125 million years ago. Giant reptiles roamed a high, mountainous land many miles to the west But today that land has sunk to the bottom of the Tasman Sea and the only survivor of the reptiles is the New Zealand tuatara, a “living fossil.” These events, and others in the geological history of Auckland over the last 125 million years were described to the Auckland Rotarv Club by Mr David Rear officer''™ charge of the Auckland office of the: Geological Survey. "But 20 million years ago Auckland was once again under -he sea. There was a large delta, like the Nile delta o- the delta of the Ganges. To the west, around the Waitakeres. there were high ranges of volcanic mountains.*’ Huge lahars —floods of volcanic nek. sand, silt and water—bigger than that which caused the Tangiwai railway disaster at Christmas. 1953. swept down the mountains, covering the bottom of the sea with debris.

•’You can see the remains of one of these huge lahars today behind the Parnell Baths, where the sebed rose once more.” Mr Kear said. The final events which; helped to shape the site of Auckland took place during the Ice Age. or Pleistocene Period, when the liquid interior of the earth rose up through faults as volcanoes.