Paleomagnetic record of basaltic volcanism from Pukaki and Onepoto maar lake cores, Auckland Volcanic Field, New Zealand

Abstract

The Auckland Volcanic Field contains several maars that formed after the last interglacial and subsequently filled with sediment. Two of these maars, Pukaki and Onepoto, were recently cored as part of the Auckland Maar Lakes Project. The tephra stratigraphy of the cores indicates that sediment accumulated relatively slowly in both maars until the Holocene when ocean waters breached the craters and they filled up quite rapidly. Using u-channels, we collected 23 m of pre-Holocene lacustrine sediment from the Pukaki 1-01 core and 15 m from the Onepoto core. Paleomagnetic measurements were performed on these at the University of California, Davis. Environmental magnetic records from both cores provide insights into the eruptive history of the Auckland Volcanic Field. The lack of a tephrostratigraphic control in the lower portion of the cores, and the lack of similar trends in the magnetic parameters, prevented a complete core correlation. The main finding is that local basaltic tephra layers visible in the cores show up as spikes in the concentration-dependent magnetic parameters, suggesting that other spikes represent tephra layers that are not as easily discerned. © 2010 The Royal Society of New Zealand.