The Spectacular Rocks of Mataikona New Zealand | Discovery Geology

We are at Mataikona on the east coast of the North Island of New Zealand, and this is not far from Castle Point which is about 15 minutes drive away. And you can see here on this shore platform some absolutely stunning layers of rock extending into the distance. This place is a little bit like a best-kept secret of this coastline, not many people actually visit it, even though it is one of the most visually striking rock formations in the area. These beds were formed about 20 million years ago. They represent many underwater mud flows or turbidites that were deposited in about 500 or 1000 meters of water depth under the ocean. Since they were deposited flat on the ocean floor, they've been uplifted and tilted and then eroded flat by the waves washing across the area. The ridges stand out because they are sandstone which is relatively hard compared to the softer mudstone layers sandwiched between them. When one of these mud flows or turbidity currents spread out across the sea floor, the sandy material settles down first and the finer mud then gradually formed a layer on top. This was repeated many many times over thousands of years to create this thick sequence that we see here. Some of the layers are very thick like this one and some over there you can see are quite thin so they vary a lot and very very occasionally we can find trace fossils of sea creatures which lived in the mud on the ocean floor. Apart from the sedimentary layers you can also see structures like faults. You can see these layers don't quite line up so this fault runs across the shore platform and when it ruptured it pushed one side apart from the other side and we can see quite a few of these faults criss-crossing the beds right across the shore platform. Here we have another fantastic geological location on the wild Wairarapa coast of the North Island.