TIMARU LOESS: DEPOSITS OF INTERNATIONAL SIGNIFICANCE.

Along the east coast of the South Island New Zealand, large deposits of loess formed in the Quaternary Period. In the late 1880s and early 1890s, an amateur geologist, John Hardcastle, observed the deposits around his hometown of Timaru. He formulated a theory that their origins were glacial and that as these deposits formed, they left a register of climate. This was the first time that a connection between loess deposits and climate was made, and his discovery is still recognised across the world today. However, the deposits themselves are hardly acknowledged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]