Kaikoura Peninsula - Kaikoura Canyon

Kaikoura Canyon

The Kaikoura Canyon is a submarine canyon located southwest of the Kaikoura Peninsula off the northeastern coast of the South Island. It is 60 km long, up to 1200 m deep, and is generally U-shaped. It is an active canyon that merges into a deep ocean channel system that meanders for hundreds of kilometres across the deep ocean floor. It is the main sediment source of the 1500 km long Hikurangi Channel, which supplies turbidites to the Hikurangi Trough, as well as to low parts of the oceanic Hikurangi Plateau, and to the edge of the southwest Pacific Basin. It is deeply incised into the narrow, tectonically active, continental margin. It is thought to be the sink for the coastal sediment transport system that carries large amounts of erosional debris northwards up the coast from the rivers draining the tectonically active mountains of the South Island.