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Late Cenozoic emergence of the islands of the northern Lau-Colville Ridge, southwest Pacific
Journal article   Peer reviewed

Late Cenozoic emergence of the islands of the northern Lau-Colville Ridge, southwest Pacific

Patrick Nunn
Geological Society, London, Special Publications, Vol.146, pp.269-278
1998
url
https://doi.org/10.1144/GSL.SP.1999.146.01.16View
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Abstract

neotectonics quaternary sea level change Fiji Aves Galliformes
This paper is included in the Special Publication entitled 'Coastal tectonics', edited by I. Stewart and C. Vita-Finzi. The Lau-Colville Ridge is part of an island arc abandoned during Pliocene time as a result of development of the back-arc Lau Basin. Throughout much of Plio-Pleistocene time, the ridge subsided, and its volcanic peaks were submerged and cloaked with (reef) limestone. Uplift, mostly during Pleistocene time, caused the northern part of the ridge to emerge by at least 315 m. Islands along the northern Lau-Colville Ridge exhibit ten well-defined terraces above c.10 m whose ages are constrained by those of anomalously young lavas and avian phosphates. Low-level emerged shorelines may be all of Holocene age and exhibit a recurrence interval of coseismic uplift events of 1500 years.

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