Cosmogenic Exposure Dating of Paleo-Rockfall Deposits, Christchurch, New Zealand

The 22nd February 2011 MW 6.2 Christchurch earthquake occurred on a previously unrecognized blind thrust fault and generated severe localized vertical ground accelerations (>2 g). Constraining rupture history for such faults is challenging as there is no surface evidence of faulting (e.g., scarps, fault traces) which can be studied directly. However, the earthquake generated a range of secondary effects, including extensive rockfall and cliff collapse at many locations around the Port Hills south of Christchurch, remnants of a Miocene strato-shield volcanic complex. Many of these sites also exhibit pre-historic rockfall deposits. Here we ask whether ancient rockfall deposits can serve as off-fault evidence for paleo-earthquakes, and can be used to constrain the timing of previous episodes of severe shaking? Our site at Rapaki Bay west of Lyttelton is ideally suited for analysis of paleo-rockfall events as it has a prominent 60 m high sub-vertical cliff comprised of stratified lava flows, and a 600-m-long planar fore-slope. The site experienced significant, well-documented rockfall during the 2011 event, and has large (2-10 m diameter), lichen-covered boulders scattered down slope and partially embedded in late Quaternary loess and colluvium. We employ cosmogenic exposure dating of paleo-rockfall boulders to establish the timing of boulder emplacement. The basalt rock contains abundant clinopyroxene (augite) which is able to quantitatively retain cosmogenic 3He. This approach requires constraining the inherited 3He from non-cosmogenic sources, the potential cosmogenic exposure while boulders are on the cliff, and the background erosion rate. The probability distribution of exposure ages from the surface of pre-historically emplaced boulders show significant clustering of ages in the mid Holocene, with a long tail of individual ages out to ~60 ka. Comparison with numerical modeling of a range of rockfall event scenarios reveals the measured age distribution is most readily explained by a rare mid-Holocene rockfall event, with older exposure ages likely attributable to inheritance acquired on the cliff face prior to failure.