Marine Terrace - Prominent Examples

Prominent Examples

Marine terraces can be found on many geodynamically influenced coastlines around the world.

Important sites include various coasts of New Zealand, e.g. Turakirae Head near Wellington being one of the world’s best and most thoroughly studied examples. Also along the Cook Strait in New Zealand there is a well-defined sequence of uplifted marine terraces from the late Quaternary at Tongue Point. It features a well preserved lower terrace from the last interglacial, a widely eroded higher terrace from the penultimate interglacial and another still higher terrace, which is nearly completely decayed. Furthermore on New Zealand’s North Island at the eastern Bay of Plenty a sequence of seven marine terraces has been studied.

Along many coasts of mainland and islands around the Pacific, marine terraces are typical coastal features. An especially prominent marine terraced coastline can be found north of Santa Cruz, near Davenport, California, where terraces probably have been raised by repeated slip earthquakes on the San Andreas Fault. But also along the coasts of South America marine terraces are present, where the highest ones are situated where plate margins lie above subducted oceanic ridges and the highest and most rapid rates of uplift occur. At Cape Laundi, Sumba Island, Indonesia an ancient patch reef can be found at 475 m above sea level as part of a sequence of coral reef terraces with eleven terraces being wider than 100 m. The coral marine terraces at Huon Peninsula, New Guinea, which extend over 80 km and rise over 600 m above present sea level are currently on UNESCO’s tentative list for world heritage sites under the name Houn Terraces - Stairway to the Past.

Other considerable examples include marine terraces rising up to 360 m on some Philippine Islands and along the Mediterranean Coast of North Africa, especially in Tunisia, rising up to 400 m.