The landscapres ofK-Tiritiri-o-te-Moana Southern Alps are highly varied along its length. This is our islands' spine along our active plate boundary, characterised by a range of deformed sediments, schists, and unique rocks, thrust up into our major mountain peaks.
In the garden here, we have a selection of just a few of these key types rock types. The rocks show different stages of compression in the mountain building process, starting with the meta-sedimentary sandstones of the Torlesse Supergroup - old and stressed, but still hanging on to their origins as marine layers formed down the continental slope by turbidity currents off the coast of Gondwana, and not quire metamorphised yet. The metamorphic rocks are represented by fine schist and phyllite, pink schist, qaurtz veined schist, greenschist and the truly unique rock, dunite.
