Geology Of New Zealand

by Ferdinand von Hochstetter

Translated by C A Fleming

Hardback published by R. E. Owen, Government Printer, Wellington, 1959. First Edition thus.

320 pages incl index + frontispiece + plates (some colour) + folding maps and charts.

Pages tight and generally clean with fold-out maps good. Name on inside cover

Dust Jacket has wear and a couple of tears.

Hochstetter was the first to describe and interpret many features of New Zealand geology. In the North Island he depicted the graben-like structure of what he called the Taupo Zone and related the distribution of hot springs to fault lines. He recognised active fault traces near Waimangu and the faulted structure of the Paeroa Range. He left the best description of Rotomahana and the Terraces as they were before the Tarawera eruption. He recognised Taupo as the source of the pumice in North Island rivers and attributed the lake basins to the collapse of parts of the volcanic plateau. He described the volcanic cones of Auckland Isthmus. His fossil collections formed the basis for later advances. Hochstetter also described the Maitai beds of Nelson, and the huge serpentine mass between French Pass and Tophouse (“Mineral Belt”). His name “dunite” for the olivine rock of Dun Mountain is firmly established. He discovered Triassic fossils near Richmond and boldly interpreted the structure of north-west Nelson. His greatest contribution was to establish a tradition of systematic geological mapping that persisted in later geological exploration.