New Zealand has an area of 268,675 km2 and comprises two major islands—North Island (114,687 km2 or 44,281 sq mi) and South Island (150,460 km2 or 58,093 sq mi) separated by Cook Strait, 20 km wide—and outlying islands. Stewart Island, the largest (670 sq mi) of the outlying islands, is composed of granites and metamorphics; the Chatham Islands (372 sq mi) are composed of schist, Cretaceous and Tertiary sediments, and volcanics; Great Barrier Island (176 sq mi) is composed of volcanics, late Tertiary and Mesozoic graywacke; and numerous small islands are predominantly volcanic (the Kermadecs (q.v.), Little Barrier Island, White Island, Mayor Island, Three King's Island, Solander Island, The Snares, Campbell, Auckland, Bounty and Antipodes Islands). New Zealand also administers the Tokelau Islands, Niue, and Cook Island in the South Pacific, and the Ross Dependency (414,400 km2) in Antarctica.
The landscapes of both North Island and South Island are dominated by axial ranges, of Upper...
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Stevens, G.R. (1975). New zealand . In: World Regional Geology. Encyclopedia of Earth Science. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-31081-1_81
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