The Mid-Oligocene Marshall Paraconformity, New Zealand: Coincidence with Global Eustatic Sea-Level Fall or Rise?

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
The Marshall Paraconformity is a regional mid-Oligocene unconformity that occurs widely in shelf sequences from the eastern New Zealand passive continential margin. The paraconformity represents a break in sedimentation of at least 3 m.y. [million yr] and coincided with are gional sea-level highstand, in contrast to the prediction of global lowstand at 29 m.y. P.P. Similar paraconformities are widespread on other southern continents. Deep-sea hiatuses of similar age occurred in the adjacent southwest Pacific ocean basins: they may or may not have a common origin with the hiatus associated with the Marshall Paraconformity. Possible causes for the paraconformity and its associated glauconitic and bioclastic sediments are sea-level fluctuations, including these related to local geoidal effects, or erosive bottom waters stemming from the development of Antarctic glaciation or from splitting of the southern continents.