FOSSILIZED SHELLS

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 128, 23 February 1939, Page 8

FOSSILIZED SHELLS

Discovery By Trampers In Ruahine Ranges ALTITUDE OF 2000 FEET At an altitude of 2000 ft. in the Ruahine Ranges, two young Wellington trampers, Messrs. B. Greig and F. G. Fitzgerald, recenlty discovered an outcrop of rock thickly studded with fossilized sea shells. It is in a narrow gorge through which runs a small stream thought to be the headwaters of the Waipawa River. The trampers walked from Whakarara beyond Takapau, past McCulloch’s timber mill on the Waipawa River, at the edge of the timberland, and followed the stream beyond the timber line till they reached 2000 ft. It was on their return journey that they noticed the glistening of shells in a ledge of rock over which the stream was running. They broke off several samples and carried them back to Wellington. Asked for comment on the find, Dr. P. Marshall, Wellington, Government petrologist, said that the rocks were probably what was known as shell limestone. They would be tertiary rocks, and similar fossilized shells had been found in other parts of New Zealand, some at an altitude higher than 2000 ft., though that was higher than usual. Finds of shell limestone, which were not uncommon, were nevertheless interesting as they showed- that at some period what was now known as New Zealand had been under the sea.

It was in this country that Mr. Hamish Armstrong, a young Hawke’s Bay aviator, crashed on July 21, 1935, on a flight in his Moth aeroplane from his home in Akitio to Hastings. The country was bush-clad, rough and covered with snow, and for a fortnight parties searched vainly for the missing man. On August 4, two men from a party of Hawke’s Bay trampers who were looking for skiing grounds on the main divide of. the Ruahine Ranges found the aeroplane. No trace of Mr. Armstrong was ever found, though aeroplanes searched over an area of 9000 square miles. (Picture on page 7.)