Northland and East Cape Allochthons
| This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. |
An allochthon is land that formed elsewhere, and slid on top of other land (in other words, the material of an enormous landslide). Much of the land of Northland and East Cape were created in this manner. Around 25-22 Ma, Northland and East Cape were adjacent, with East Cape near Whangarei. Northland-East Cape was an undersea basin. Much of the land that now forms Northland-East Cape was higher land to the Northeast (composed of rocks formed 90-25 Ma). The Pacific-Australian plate boundary was further to the Northeast, with the Pacific Plate subducting under the Australian Plate. Layers of rocks were peeled off the higher land, from the top down, and slid Southwest under the influence of gravity, to be stacked the right way up, but in reverse order. The last rocks to be slid across were slabs of oceanic crust, mainly basalt. Widespread volcanic activity also occurred (23-15 Ma), and is intermixed with the foreign rocks. East Cape was later separated from Northland and moved further south and east to its present position.
Read more about this topic: Geology Of New Zealand
Famous quotes containing the words east and/or cape:
“The East is the hearthside of America. Like any home, therefore, it has the defects of its virtues. Because it is a long-lived-in house, it bursts its seams, is inconvenient, needs constant refurbishing. And some of the family resources have been spent. To attain the privacy that grown-up people find so desirable, Easterners live a harder life than people elsewhere. Today it is we and not the frontiersman who must be rugged to survive.”
—Phyllis McGinley (1905–1978)
“The Great South Beach of Long Island,... though wild and desolate, as it wants the bold bank,... possesses but half the grandeur of Cape Cod in my eyes, nor is the imagination contented with its southern aspect.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)