Debris flow deposits of early miocene age,deadman stream,Marlborough, New Zealand

Detailed analysis is presented of a conformable succession of Early Miocene conglomerates and sandstones lying between massive marine mudstones. The coarse sediments reflect deposition by a spectrum of subaqueous debris-flow mechanisms during an early pulse of tectonism that ultimately resulted in Plio-Pleistocene eversion of the Kaikoura Mountains.Sparse pebbly mudstones and rare sandy conglomerates show disoriented clasts and reflect high-viscosity flows and slurry-creep flow mechanisms. Other deposits have little mud matrix, hence appear to reflect low-viscosity flow processes. The largest clasts in these have a preferred planar orientation, probably reflecting dispersive grain pressure, and a preferred long-axis orientation parallel to flow direction. Common sorted sandstones and some conglomeratic sandstones show diffuse parallel lamination; with rare exceptions neither grading nor traction structures are present. Other conglomeratic sandstones show trough cross-bedding which we attribute to entrained bedload movement during intersurge episodes of debris flow.Microfossil data from the mudstones indicate sedimentation in an environment of outer neritic to upper bathyal aspect. Most detritus is abraded, suggesting derivation from terrestrial or inner neritic sources, but angular calcilutitic clasts and irregular sandstone and mudstone clasts and rafts were probably derived from submarine erosion between the emergent source area and the site of accumulation. Deposits generally appear to infill broad shallow channels. Paleocurrent and fabric analysis indicate a markedly uniform flow direction throughout succession, and suggest that the locus of channeling remained relatively fixed in space throughout accumulation of hundreds of metres of superimposed, commonly amalgamated debris-flow deposits. Although lateral control away from the measured sequence is limited, we infer that the locus of deposition lay shoreward of any submarine canyon or fan.